Chapter Twelve: Shadow The Ultimate Art Critic

==Story==
Chapter Twelve: Shadow The Ultimate Art Critic
THE FOLLOWING TAKES PLACE BETWEEN 8:00 A.M. AND 8:30 A.M. ON 10/6/2009
Nick, Alex, and Shadow were all sitting side-by-side in art class. Nick and Alex were drawing various objects on their portraits with pencil. Nick turned to Alex, looking at his portrait.
"What're you drawing up?" Nick asked.
"Oh, just an idea I had last night," Alex explained. Nick, taking a closer look at the drawing, saw what appeared to be a dinosaur-car eating several evil pieces of clock towers while fireman shot large mortar rounds at them through a telephone pole-OKAY HOW DOES THIS MAKE ANY SENSE! EVEN ON MY STANDARDS THIS IS MESSED UP-*ahem*-I am sorry for that spaz.
"...what the crap is that, Alex?" Nick asked, confused.
"Oh. I had a dream where we all rode dinosaur-cars, and clock towers were hypnotized by an evil sorceress from Steven's inner mind, and the fireman are trying to stop us both by firing military-grade mortar rockets from a gun designed to look like a telephone pole," Alex explained.
"Like THAT'LL ever happen..." Nick sighed. The words "EPIC" began appearing, but Nick just smacks them away.
"NO! That's just going beyond the boundaries of insanity," Nick grumbled. The word "EPIC" disappeared, and Nick and Alex continued drawing on their portraits. Meanwhile, Shadow was busy using some colored charcoal to emphasis his drawing. Rouge looked over Shadow's shoulder at the drawing, which honestly looked like a work of Picasso.
"Wow, Shady. What's this artwork representing?" Rouge asked.
"It represents all my fear, angst, and emotion bottled up inside of my artificial soul for nearly 50+ years," Shadow dramatically explained. Nick just coughed, making the sound "emo" as he did so. Shadow cast Nick another glare. NICK became paralyzed! He may be unable to move next turn! After the second Pokémon reference in this story was finished, the art teacher casted a glance over at Shadow's painting. Immdiately, the teacher stopped and stared.
"Woah! This is impressive beyond recognition! Have you been to art classes before?" the teacher asked.
"No. This is the first time I've been doing this kind of thing," Shadow answered.
"You're really good at this, Shady!" Rouge beamed. Some of the other students got interested and decided to take a look at Shadow's painting. It wasn't long before all the girls in the art room were crowded around the painting. The only people not surrounding Shadow were the bored male jocks that took this class to get more credits, Nick, and Alex. As for the rest of the Sonic cast...
"AMY, GET THAT PAINTBRUSH AWAY FROM ME!" Sonic screamed.
"Make me!" Amy screamed back.
"Guys! I has found a nickel!" Knuckles shouted, while rifling through the garbage can for no particular reason.
...yeah, the other 3 were busy. Shadow just looked around at all the girls surrounding him.
"It's only a drawing. Are you seriously impressed by this?" Shadow asked, curious.
"This is amazing!" one of the girls swooned.
"You're awesome at this!" the other girls all replied. Shadow smirked.
"Huh. Apparently, art is the one thing that can make everyone fall under my command..." Shadow mumbled. Of course, no one caught that. The teacher began writing on a slip of paper, and she handed it to Shadow.
"Shadow, was it? Keep this with you at all times. This excuse'll keep the other teachers from marking you down as unlawfully excused from class. I want to see you work on this all day!" the teacher asked.
"How do they know I'm not from the realm of video games...?" Shadow thought, before shrugging it off.
"I don't need an excuse; I'm already unlawful," Shadow answered. The words "EPIC SHADOW QUOTE" appear at the bottom of the screen, as nearly every girl fainted...all except for Rouge.
"Shadow..." Rouge asked somewhat sternly. "What are you doing?"
"Just basking in the moment, Rouge," Shadow chuckled, now eyeing all the swooning chicks that were, for some weird reason, bowing down to him like some sort of god...which is true, in all hindsight, I think, but who cares?
"Well...okay..." Rouge mumbled, feeling awkward for some odd reason. Shadow stared at her, noticing her distress, and was about to say something whenever various girls popped up in front of them.
"Come on, Shadow! Draw some more!" all fo the girls screamed, becoming increasingly fangirly and creepier as time passed. Shadow stared before continuing to draw on his portrait. Rouge's face turned...rouge...from anger, but the bell rang before she could say anything. Rouge walked away in a huff (followed by Sonic running out the door being chased by a paintbrush-wielding Amy). Nick and Alex then walked out of the room, with Knuckles following, head stuck inside the trash can. Shadow noticed Rouge's distress while she was leaving and was about to say something whenever more girls began groping his muscles and whining for him to continue drawing. INFERNOX gets officially creeped out by this fangirlism and leaves Shadow's P.O.V. to the hands of God.
"Wait, since this is your fic, doesn't that mean you're-?" Shadow began to ask, until INFERNOX screamed.
"YUP, LEAVING SHADOW TO THE HANDS OF GOD," INFERNOX answered.
----
Nick and Alex had gone their separate ways to their different classes, and Nick was heading down the hallway heading to English class when the gym teacher stopped him.
"Oh, hey Mr. (name removed due to legal issues). What's up?" Nick asked.
"Nick, we're starting a new gym unit today. Gladiator dodgeball," the gym teacher explained. Nick's eyes lit up.
"Sweet! But what does that concern me for?" Nick wondered.
"You're imaginative; every teacher from your classes thinks so," the gym teacher explained.
"Well...are you asking me to help you build the defenses for gladiator dodgeball today?" Nick questioned.
"Yeah. I already asked your teachers, and they said you could skip class as long as you give your imagination your all for Period 7 gym today," the gym teacher exclaimed. Nick's eyes widened to the size of dodgeballs, before his dodgeball-eyes fell out of his head and became replaced with real eyes.
"How did you...?" the gym teacher asked.
"The Mal-Wart," Nick answered.
"Don't you mean Wal-Mart?" the gym teacher corrected. Nick just smiled evilly.
"You could say that..." Nick grinned, walking to the gymnasium as he said so. The gym teacher shrugged off the feeling about something bad was about to happen, and he walked with Nick to the gym.
----
Rouge couldn't focus at all during English class today. Her mind kept going back to Shadow being swooned over by the hot girls of Nick's school. Rouge could imagine them stripping Shadow of his clothing one-by-one, while they (CENSOREDCENSOREDCENSORED) with (CENSOREDCENSOREDCENSORED) on his (CENSORED) with some whipped cream and (CENSOREDCENSOREDCENSORED) and after the paintbrush was broken, they would (CENSORED) on his (CENSOREDCENSOREDCENSORED) with an extension cord (CENSOREDCENSOREDCENSORED) pine-scented automobile (CENSORED) minus symbol (CENSOREDCENSOREDCENSORED) in a public bathroom (CENSOREDCENSOREDCENSORED) after buying car insurance at a Burger King (CENSORED) with Mama Luigi's special spaghetti sauce (CENSOREDCENSORED) on a Christmas Tree (CENSORED) Disney Entertainment buying the rights to the American Constitution (CENSOREDCENSOREDCENSORED) with a giant chicken (CENSOREDCENSORED...okay, you get the idea...), and then he would begin eating ice cream with nothing more than a spork. Rouge shuddered at this revelation in her head, and she whined softly. Knuckles somehow heard this, and turned to her, about to say something.
"Okay, Knuckles! This is your chance! Don't screw up! Tell her how you FEEL-NO! Tell her what she wants to hear!" Knuckles thought. "Wait, but what...? Um...'hey, Rouge. Since I was going to say hi earlier but couldn't, I told myself I don't hate you at all, and if you don't mind I'd like to go'...nah that won't work."
Knuckles then tilted his head. "How about...'hey, Rouge. Since I wanted to say hello earlier but couldn't, I told myself I love your sense of theivery and'...nah. Aw, crap! I'm losing the moment!" Knuckles immdiately thought. Knuckles then began speaking to Rouge.
"Hello, Rouge, since I hated you in the hallway, I told myself I'll never say hi to you and if you don't mind I'll call you Knuckles from now on," Knuckles beamed. Knuckles's eyes then widened.
"Crap..." Knuckles muttered. Rouge then smacked Knuckles upside the head with a "Fail" sign. Rouge then went back to sadness and confusion.
"What am I going to do about Shadow?" Rouge sadly thought. ("DEAR SWEET GOD I THINK YOU BROKE MY BRAIN!" Knuckles screamed off-screen.)
----
Meanwhile in the Gymnasium, Nick was standing in the center of the gym. Looking around at the empty gym, Nick saw 6 floor mats used for matball, 12 rolled-up carpets used for wrestling, 10 large stuffed bags used for god-knows-what, and 3 giraffes. Nick looked at the gym teacher in confusion.
"The AV club needed giraffes today," the gym teacher answered, before Nick even asked the question.
"Don't you mean graphs?" Nick wondered. The AV club (surprisingly (not) led by Matt) walked in.
"No, we need giraffes," Matt answered, taking all three giraffes out of the gym. Nick stared, then turned to the mats.
"Okay then. I think we'll need to even this out, yet still make it awesome..." Nick mumbled, looking at the equipment given to him. Nick then snapped his head up in a flash of genius, a light bulb appearing above his head as he did so.
"I GOT IT!" Nick shouted. The light bulb then fell on Nick's head. "Ouch! Ugh...how about we take 6 of those rolled-up mats and set them up straight here in the middle. 3 on one side, 3 on the other, all of them uneven, yet perfectly placed across for those who dare to try to venture into No Man's Land?"
The gym teacher just went over and got one rolled-up carpet. "Let's start it off then. Help me place these things," the gym teacher asked. Nick came over and lifted up one of the rolled carpets. Underneath it was a Raving Rabbid, which screamed "Bwahhhhh!" before running off outside.
----
Rouge was now in math class, and her mind was still focused on Shadow.
"Wonder if Shadow's alright...he's been gone quite a long time..." Rouge sighed. Rouge then looked at her math problem, which wasn't all too hard; she had taken notes beforehand. Rouge finished the problem, but was surprised at the answer she got. It was, not-surprisingly enough, the number 69.
"...this seems to be bad," Rouge sighed. A calculator whizzed by her head, and Rouge turned to see Knuckles chewing on a desk, Amy hitting Sonic with a hammer, and Steven apparently arguing with the idiotic Knuckles over how to use a calculator. Rouge sighed again, now completely lost from reality.
----
"Okay, then we put the 5 stuffed bags over there by the edge so people can hide behind it, but leave an opening for those lazy people that can be used as a vintage point or as a breakthrough area for both teams," Nick ordered, pushing some of the stuffed bags over against the wall. The gym teacher and Nick both pushed against the bags until they made what seemed to be a steps going down from the wall. There was a purposely-left hole in the middle where someone with a dodgeball could easily throw through.
"Pretty good, Nick. Let's see what else we got left," the gym teacher asked. Looking at the remaining equipment, there were at least 5 large stuffed mats, 6 floor mats, and 6 rolled-up carpets that were still unused.
"Hmm...well, we can use the floor mats as typical walls for defense," Nick suggested, placing each of the six mats in upright and strategic positions. "But that leaves the final 6 carpets and 5 stuffed mats..."
"Why don't we try making some sort of barricade? You know, like for what we just did for the other side of the gym?" the gym teacher suggested.
"GOT IT!" Nick screamed. Taking the mats and carpets, Nick conglomerated the rest into a fort on one side. The gym teacher looked confused.
"Nick, that kinda overpowers the other team..." the gym teacher noted. Nick just laughed.
"Trust me, this is a good idea. Just make sure to put me, Alex, Stephon, and the new kids on the other team," Nick pointed out.
"What have you got planned?" the gym teacher asked.
"You'll see..." Nick chuckled.
----
Rouge and the gang were in Visual Basic class as of right now, and they were working on their programs to learn how to convert algorithims into text or some crap like that. Rouge was actually surfing Google Images to figure out what people thought and drew of Shadow. This would've been alright with Rouge, but because the school ran on Google Chrome, she kept getting random advertisements every time she scrolled down the screen. Eventually, Rouge came across a photo of Shadow and Amy making out. Not only did this creep her out, it also broke the computer out of sheer...possibility. Rouge's eyes widened, but she calmed down when she saw Amy was bugging Sonic. Knuckles was over in the corner of the room, whimpering and hoping to not say anything to get on Rouge's bad side again. Nick was typing up quietly on the computer, and Neil and Mike were still arguing over god-knows-what. Rouge began to whisper to Nick.
"Hey, Nick? Do you think Shadow's alright?" Rouge asked.
"Probably. I mean, it's only a muscular teenager with many hot girls swooning over his every move, with no adult supervision in the basement of a school with no echo-y hallways and easy to lock doors in a windowless room," Nick explained. Somehow, this made Rouge feel worse.
"Wait, when did you get back?" Rouge wondered.
"...just a couple minutes ago. The gym's literally next door to the Visual Basic classroom," Nick pointed out. The teacher then scolded Knuckles and made him sit in the corner.
"But I thought the blue screen was the movie..." Knuckles whined.
"You idiot, Knuckles. You can't view porn on the school system," Neil sighed.
"What about Wikipedia?" Mike suggested. Neil's head slowly turned around to Mike.
"...for once, you're a genius," Neil complimented, before rapidly typing words on the keyboard.
----
A couple hours passed before the actual plot of this chapter occurred. Rouge had gym class this period, and she was heading for there right now, passing by the art classroom as she did so. Whenever she did, however, she noticed something peculiar. Opening the door, Rouge dropped her books and gasped in surprise. This was the janitor's closet, not the art class door. Opening the art classroom door, Rouge's jaw dropped through the floor, broke through the ceiling, and hit Knuckles on the head, even though he was upstairs. Shadow was all tied up, and he looked pale. Many girls were surrounding him, all licking their lips evilly. One of them then spoke up.
"Time for Round 3, Shady..." the creepy girl moaned. Shadow just struggled as one of the girls reached to grope his arm muscles...until Rouge kicked all of them away in three seconds flat. Each girl got up, now staring like bloodthirsty bats at Rouge. (Woah, weird comparison there...)
"KEEP YOUR FILTHY WHORE HANDS OFF MY SHADOW!" Rouge screamed. Each of the girls then put on acryclic nails superglued down with cement for some reason. They all began using Scratch attack. ROUGE used DOUBLE TEAM! ROUGE's evasiveness rose! THE HYPER FANGIRLS used FURY SWIPES! The attack missed! ROUGE fled! THE HYPER FANGIRLS all laughed in victory...until they realized Rouge had run off with Shadow, who she had also untied in less than .05 seconds, if possible. The fangirls then began chasing down Rouge and Shadow, looking strangely reminiscient of Sonic's Werehog form as they dashed. Rouge and Shadow ran up the staircase closest to the art room, heading down the halls at breakneck speed to reach the gymnasium. One teacher got in their path, and stopped both of them.
"HOLD IT! No running in the halls! I'll have to write you up for a misconduct!" the teacher screeched. Then, the insane fangirls burst out of the doorway and began running down the hall after them.
"Fight the power, biznatches!" Shadow screamed, throwing the teacher at them before picking Rouge up bridal-style and running down the hall to the gymnasium's doors. The teacher was stampeded over, and, if normal physics applied, she would've died. But she didn't. In fact, she just somehow got re-inflated like an air balloon. Continuing on, Shadow and Rouge got ever closer to the open gym doors, with the insane fangirls in hot pursuit...
----
"WE GOT ONE MAN DOWN, ONE MAN DOWN! CALL IN BACKUP!" Stephone screeched into a walkie-talkie. Lying outside one of the barricades (aka floor mats) was someone on Nick's team who was hit in the face with a dodgeball. For some reason, there were craters and smoke everywhere, and everyone on the other team had machine guns that were shooting dodgeballs. Everyone on Nick's team had the same exact thing, only with less fortifications. Stephone pulled a tag off of one of the dodgeballs and threw it. The dodgeball exploded upon impact, knocking several people to the ground. Nick ducked, weaved, danced, jumped, rock 'n rolled, and floated somehow to Stephon's position, dodging every single one of the 67 dodgeballs thrown at him before he got to Stephon.
"What weapons you got left?" Nick quickly asked.
"I have an empty shotgun, 2 grenades, and that's about it," Stephon noted. Nick took both grenades, and began running towards the other side of the gym in a suicide-style attempt.
"VIVA LA KAMIKAZE, BIOTCHES!" Nick screamed, throwing both grenades at a cluster of people right as they exploded. This didn't harm Nick for some reason, but it sent a torrent of dodgeballs into the cluster, knocking them all out. Of course, due to the war-like scenario, it literally looked like Nick had just killed several students with grenades. INFERNOX waits for the school board to find this fic and begin flaming it. Nick then jumped behind a rolled-up carpet, pulling out a bazooka and loading several dodgeballs into it before firing it at the forttress on the other team. The resulting explosion blows apart the other team's forts. The fort still stands, but the roof is blown off. Several students run out screaming, before Stephon and Alex unleash a torrent of dodgeballs on them from two turrets that had placed in the gym from before. After the last dodgeball conked the last student on the head, all was silent.
"...did we win?" Nick asked randomly. The gym teacher just stared.
"...yeah...yeah, you did..." the gym teacher noted.
"That was the best dodgeball game ev-!" Alex began, before Kayne West ran up to him.
"I KNOW THAT WAS AWESOME, AND IMMA GONNA LET YOU FINISH, BUT BEYONCE HAD ONE OF THE BEST DODGEBALL GAMES OF ALL TIME! OF ALL TIME!" Kayne West shouted. Kayne was then booed out of the gymnasium by Matt and the AV club's giraffes, which were watching the dodgeball event from the bleachers. After that, every student, knocked with a dodgeball or not, got up and replaced all the dodgeballs to their original positions. Before they could fix up the gym in 10 seconds though, Shadow burst through the double doors, and he immdiately ran for one of the turrets, which Shadow had noticed in a split-second. Rouge grabbed several machine guns and loaded them, staring intently at the double doors.
"What are you two doing?" Nick asked. This stupid question was answered whenever the fangirls ran in. Shadow and Rouge opened fire, while everyone else ran off, screaming like crazy. Several fangirls were defeated right at the start from either broken nails or ruined make-up, instead of being k.o.'d by a dodgeball, as most people would expect. Shadow then broke the turret off of its hinges and continued firing while running away from the spreading fangirls, eventually coming into the ruined base. Rouge entered the other side of the doorway, since the base only had two openings. As Shadow and Rouge both fought off the fangirls (which, I have to admit, at this point is resembling Left 4 Dead), some fangirls began climbing over the walls to reach Shadow and Rouge. Then, FROM COMPLETELY OUT OF NOWHERE, Nick jumps up behind the fangirls and blasts them both with a dodgeball shotgun, landing inside the base with Shadow and Rouge as well.
"COME ON, YOU GUYS! MOVE IT!" Nick ordered. As soon as Nick yelled that, Sonic, Knuckles, Stephon, Alex, and Amy all jumped over the wall (cause they can and the fangirls can't) and they landed inside the base as well. As everyone was firing in all directions to repel the fangirls, Nick cleared his throat and stared at the wall separated himself from the outside world. Nick cleared his throat, then yelled at the top of his lungs.
"NOW!" Nick shouted. Instead of the Kool-Aid man bursting through the wall as expected, Clark from Rayman: Revolution smashed through the wall, big grin on his face.
"Heya, guys. Are there any robot pirates around I can munch on?" Clark asked. Nick just pointed to the fangirls.
"These robots are partially-organic! They're so close to organic, they're almost not crunchy!" Nick yelled. Clark then gasped, and charged at the fangirls, swiping them all away for being abominations to robot-kind everywhere. As Stephone tried to comprehend this, Nick ushered everyone outside before placing some large dodgeball mines in the ground outside of the hole. Everyone ran to the other side of the parking lot and waiting, hiding behind parked cars as they did so. Silence. More silence.
"So, what the hell was Clark doing here?" Alex asked. Immdiately after Alex finished, the fangirls ran outside of the hole in the wall and many of them exploded from the dodgeball mines. BUT EVEN MORE FANGIRLS CAME CRAWLING OUT AFTER THAT.
"How many girls were in that art room anyway?" Rouge asked.
"They invited some fanclubs or something," Shadow explained. As the fangirls inched ever closer, a giant dodgeball came out of nowhere and exploded in front of all of them. Turning around, everyone saw Knuckles in a tank.
"I'M DOING SOMETHING IMPORTANT!" Knuckles shouted, now rapidly firing dodgeballs from two dual machine guns and the tank in a move that shamed everything Bruce Lee had every accomplished, while at the same time, making him more appealing to Rouge and setting a new level of recklessness for this fanfic. But even the almighty dodgeball tank couldn't stop the fangirls. Amy then got out another walkie-talkie and pressed a blue button on it. Sonic looked at Amy.
"What did you do?" Sonic asked. Amy just pointed to the sky. In the sky, a large Boeing 757 was cruising through the sky, and it dropped a bomb that looked like a dodgeball. The dodgebomb hit the fangirls and exploded, finally eliminating all of them in one single blast. Everyone then cheered.
"WOO HOO! WE WON!" Sonic shouted.
"WE DID SOMETHING USEFUL!" Knuckles and Amy both cried.
"I'm not scarred for life!" Shadow chuckled.
"...well, I kinda am..." Rouge sighed, walking off away from the school since this chapter is over. As she walked away, the sad walking-away music from the Incredible Hulk began playing.
"But...what did I do?" Shadow wondered.
"Oh, you kinda toyed with my heart, and made me feel like some sort of useless baggage for your love life," Rouge cried, running off while the sad music continued to play. Shadow then stared on, speechless and actually sad at this. Then Shadow turned angry, picked up a dodgeball, and threw it at Nick.
"TURN OFF YOUR GODDAMNED MP3 PLAYER!" Shadow screamed.
"Excuse me for having music on every occasion for anything..." Nick muttered, turning off his MP3 player. Knuckles then ran up to Rouge, thinking VERY VERY HARD.
"Okay, this time for sure!" Knuckles thought, before reaching Rouge.
"Hey, Rouge. Sorry about earlier. I tried to say I wanted to hang out and be better friends with you, but INFERNOX made me say otherwise," Knuckles noted. Rouge turned to Knuckles, still sad but her eyes now shining with some hope.
"Really?" Rouge asked.
"Yeah, he's telling the truth. I just wanted to squeeze in a Perusse joke for the hell of it," INFERNOX explained.
"Oh...well, thanks, Knux," Rouge smiled, rubbing his head slightly.
"Walk you home, if you want," Knuckles asked. Rouge just took his hand, smiling. They both walked off away from the school to Nick's home, which would've been a perfect romantic moment, had Sonic not screamed, "DON'T WE STILL HAVE SCHOOL!"
The Nostalgia Critc then appeared, looking at a watch. "Oh, well, I guess we can make room for your romance...THAT STARTED LITERALLY RIGHT NOW!" the Nostalgia Critic screamed, before leaving.
Shadow stood there, gaping, as he had been sucker-punched, owned, and thrown to the curb in all of 5 minutes by an idiot. A "wah-wah-wah-wahhhhh" was heard, and an angry, bloodshot eyes and angry anime vein symboled Shadow turned around to face Nick with his MP3 player on.
"Told you I had music for every occasion..." Nick joked. Shadow then kicked Nick in the shin, where Nick fell over onto the parking lot and began crutching his shin a la Peter Griffen.
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==Trivia==
*The random appearance of Clark from Rayman 2: Revolution is made because Clark randomly smashes through solid walls in the same game he was mentioned he originated from.
*This chapter makes Nick reveal that occasionally his MP3 player will play music fitting to the situation.
*This chapter was the first to introduce and partially center around the love triangle between Shadow, Rouge, and Knuckles.
*The dodgeball incident with the zombie fangirls is a parody itself off the Left 4 Dead series.
**Coincidentally, the entire incident would be easily labeled the "Zombie Dodgeball Incident" whenever the group came across the parking lot later on in the series.
*Shadow is revealed to have pristine artistic quality in this chapter.
*Whenever INFERNOX made the descriptive joke of Shadow and the fangirls (after which Shadow broke the fourth wall and questioned it), INFERNOX stated he would leave Shadow's fate in the hands of God. Shadow then questioned THAT by saying since the entire fanfiction was INFERNOX's idea, then he was some God himself; however, before Shadow could fully imply this, INFERNOX abruptly interrupted him and cut the scene.
Category:Owner:INFERNOX/Sonic's Reality Check/SRC_Chapters