After the event that occurred only moments before, you and Shadow were off to find the chaos emerald. Apparently, the reason you passed out the day before was that you had not eaten anything in so long. So, you made sure to eat as many mangos as you could. The sweet fruit seemed to be everywhere on the island. You found yourself plucking the fruit from the ground and from trees. Never before have you ever tasted a mango. It was delicious. There was one thing you loved Earth. All of its delicious food that you never tried before.

As you and Shadow were walking along, the memory of moments earlier hung over the both of you. A huge urge made you want to glance over at him every four or five seconds. Not to mention, the both of you were awkwardly silent which made conversation... even more awkward.

"So... Where do you think the chaos emerald is, Shadow?"

"I'm... uh... pretty sure it's that way."

"Oh."

"..."

You felt his gaze on you like a boiling hot laser. Whenever you'd look back to meet his burning gaze, you'd realize he wasn't actually looking in your direction. Or was he? It drove you insane wondering what he was thinking about you. Something in the both of you had drastically changed. What? What was this feeling?! Why didn't you feel like telling him?! It was embarrassing to even think about pointing it out. Why? It was only a moment before you got your answer.

"Listen, about earlier--!" Shadow suddenly blurted out of the blue. He froze when he spoke it as if only then second-guessing himself.

You jumped after the long silence. "Huh?! What about it??"

Shadow fought to find the right words in his head. "You know, the... kiss thing..."

So that's what it was...

Shadow looked down at the ground as if meeting your gaze was simply an impossible task for him. "I'd prefer if we... completely forgot all about that..."

"Completely forget about it? Why?" you asked feeling disappoint bubble up inside of you. If anything, you wanted him to do it again. And again. And again, and again, and again... Your mind suddenly started trailing off to some sort of daydream fantasy land where Shadow was once again holding you in his embrace with his lips at yours. It was simply an image you both craved and feared at the same time.

"I... I wasn't myself this morning, and I was just doing whatever I wanted without any restraint. I shouldn't have yelled at you, shoved you, or kissed you. Which is why we're pretending that... it was all a dream," he concluded without your input.

You huffed and stepped in front of him to block his way. "How do you know I want that? I... I didn't mind at all! Shadow, I kind of liked the kiss, and you finally opened up to me! Don't take that away!"

Shadow looked up in bewilderment as if you said something in another language. You didn't completely misunderstand the kiss, did you?? Was it not the lip-to-lip contact? "You... liked it? Most people would get scared off by something like that. All that kiss amounted to was a sign of my greed and my lack of consideration." He seemed to give the subject some thought. "I guess I'll explain later what it meant... For now, I think we should focus on the chaos emerald," he told you as he looked up.

"Why are you looking up? What's in the sky that's so--?" You stopped when you saw what he was talking about. Smoke was rising up into the sky and the slope shot from mild to steep in an instant. You used one of these in a story once. It was a volcano. A mountain with boiling, hot lava inside. Based on Shadow's expression, you concluded that inside was where the next emerald was...

Shadow stopped where he was for a moment and looked over to you with a stern expression. "You're going to stay here. I'll get the emerald."

Again with this... You crossed your arms already knowing he was going to say that. "Oh really? I'm not sure if you can handle it by yourself in a volcano, Shadow!" you pointed out with a smug grin. Unlike all those other times, you had a plan.

Shadow picked up on your plan based on the tone of your voice. He narrowed his eyes at you suspiciously. "What exactly are you planning to do about that?"

Instantaneously after he finished his sentence, you jabbed your elbow into his injured arm and you knew you had him. "THAT'S WHAT!"

The look on Shadow's face was priceless. His emotions were a combination of betrayal and agony. He barely suppresses a shout in pain and gritted his teeth. After his moment of seething pain, he glared back at you with a cold bitterness. "WHAT WAS THAT FOR?!"

"You need me, Shadow! You're hardly in good enough condition to tackle that volcano all by yourself!" you chirped. Something in you felt glad that you were standing up to him, but you also felt a hint of regret for jabbing him.

Finally getting over his attack in the arm, he straightened up again with annoyance written on his face. "What kind of friend does that to their companion?! If you were anyone else, you would have been history, (y/n)!!" he shouted.

"Friend? Companion??" you asked him with an even wider grin than before. He flattened his ears at you for pointing out his word choice.

"Maybe I thought of you as a companion before, but now I'm not so sure..."

You grabbed Shadow's uninjured arm playfully. "Come on! You'll forgive me once we find the chaos emerald! Let's go! To the volcano we go!!"

Thus, your first hunt for that dang 4th chaos emerald began.

The inside of the volcano wasn't what you pictured it to be. Jagged rocks spiked up everywhere you turned and the heat was unbearable. Sometimes, you'd find a cave or two from where lava carved out the rock before draining out again and hardening. Shadow had his hand to his injured arm the whole time with an irritated expression. Smoke was drifting around the both of you and a vividly horrible smell was wafting through the air. You coughed in disgust.

"Why does this place exist?! I hate it!" you shouted in frustration.

"That's why I told you to stay...," Shadow replied irritably.

Ignoring his statement, you continued prodding for information. "So, why does this place exist exactly?"

Shadow pondered this thought for a moment as if trying to refresh his mind to give you an adequate answer. "A volcano is a place where two tectonic plates under the earth come together. Usually, when that happens, either mountains or volcanoes form. I'm sure you can figure the difference between a mountain and a volcano. That's the simplest explanation I can give you."

Having hardly any idea of what he just said, you just nodded and pretended to know what he was talking about.

"Whoa... Look at all the caves! The chaos emerald could be anywhere!" you exclaimed as you looked at them all.

"We need to be careful... EXTREMELY careful... If what I think is correct, we came here at a pretty bad time... This volcano is going to erupt in the near future. If we go into the wrong cave, then we might run into hot magma that's quickly filling up this place... Brace yourself (y/n), it's going to get really hot in here," Shadow pointed out. He suddenly seemed to regret his last sentence.

"Hot, huh?" You looked around at each of the caves. None of them contained any chaos emeralds from what you could tell. "Do you know which cave to go down, Shadow?"

Shadow closed his eyes as if intensely focussing on something. Once his eyes opened again, he pointed to a specific cave. "That one." The jagged path of the cave was a steep downhill climb. One slip and you could be done for depending on what lies ahead.

"Do we... uh... have to go down that one...?" you asked reluctantly.

Shadow looked annoyed at you again. He was clearly still holding his grudge against you for jabbing him. "Do you want me to pat you on the head and say, "Poor little, (y/n)! It'll all be okay."? Because I'm not going to help you down or comfort you or anything."

"You'll never let that go, will you?" After making this remark you carefully started treading down the downhill slope. Shadow followed behind you. "Not that I really wanted you to help me, Shadow!"

"Good. Now get going!" he snapped.

"I'm going as fast as I can! There's no need to rush me!"

"This volcano is going to erupt and who knows if I'll be able to chaos control us away in time if that happens!"

"So you are worried about me...?"

"YES! I'm very worried about you! You're not allowed to die!"

"Awwww! How sweet of you to say! Just tell me where the chaos emerald is and I'll head in that general direction, okay?" you finally negotiated. You hoped that would get Shadow to maybe lighten up a little more.

Shadow seemed to get the hint that you wanted to get the emerald found as soon as possible. So, he decided to cooperate. "The emerald should be somewhere below us and in front of us."

"Makes sense since that's the way we're going," you pointed out.

"Exactly. Which is why I decided to go this way."

As you searched around, you only saw spikes and rocks all around you. Nothing was glowing or shiny or really all that pretty in general. In other words, no sign of the chaos emerald. You continued carefully walking forward to ensure that you wouldn't fall. After another 30 seconds of looking, Shadow tapped you lightly.

"(Y/N), the chaos emerald... It should be right below us...," Shadow told you. He was looking down at his feet. "I don't know what could be below us other than the chaos emerald, so I'm going to use my spin attack to break through the floor and get it."

"And what about me?" you asked already knowing what he was going to say.

"You'll stay here and not die in a lake of magma or get impaled by some dangerous rock," he told you with a stern point of his finger.

You placed your hands on your hips. "So, you're going to go down there so you can get impaled by a dangerous rock or die in a lake of magma." Shaking your head at him, you tried to think up a way for him to finally stop telling you not to follow him anywhere. "I'm supposed to be your friend, right Shadow?! You should definitely protect me but not to the point where we can't go anywhere safely together! I can handle myself, thank you!"

CRACK!

"Uh--! What was--?!" you demanded and suddenly you found yourself falling through the floor! Rocks crumbled around you and hot air gushed past your face as you fell.

Shadow, who somehow managed to avoid falling through the floor as well, looked in alarm at what happened. "(Y/N)!!" he shouted frantically. Of course, he didn't get an answer fast enough to satisfy his nerves.

You fell into yet another cave... but this one filled with many lava pools sizzling around you. Ominous puffs of smoke wafted from the bubbling magma and drifted through the air. Shadow was right about it being dangerous, but fate let you live another day. Unharmed, you carefully stood to your feet and looked up towards Shadow. "I'm okay!!" you finally called back.

Shadow looked anxious to hop down as well, but couldn't find a sturdy looking place to jump down to. If he did happen to land on a weak point in the rock floor, he could either break the floor and fall into magma or he could inadvertently jump into the magma if he miscalculated his jump. The point was, he was stuck a whole floor above you and only you were able to get the chaos emerald now.

"(Y/N), do you understand what situation you're in?!" Shadow demanded from above.

"There are magma pools everywhere, spikes all around, not many places to walk..., WAIT! Shadow! I see the chaos emerald!" you shouted when you saw the unmistakable glimmer of a shining gemstone quite a distance away.

Shadow seemed to gain a little confidence from hearing this. "That's good! I can't jump down because the terrain is too unstable down there! You have to get the chaos emerald on your own!" Everything in him felt wrong allowing you to try and do something so dangerous.

"So, I just have to go over there and grab the chaos emerald without touching the magma... Got it!" you shouted to him.

"Yes, the floor is literally lava," Shadow stated to try and ease the tension.

"I can do this! Don't worry about me!" you shouted to him before beginning to make your approach to the gleaming, red chaos emerald.

You were able to easily skip across some of the magma pools to hard, solid ground, but the further into the magma cave you got, the harder it became. Once again, you could feel Shadow's watchful gaze resting fearfully on you as you maneuver from one patch of ground to another. At one point you stopped to look back at him and saw that he was fully prepared to jump down if anything happened despite the odds against him. The yellow chaos emerald was in his hand. Shadow noticed you looking back at him curiously. "Don't stop moving! Time isn't going to wait for us! This place is going to be completely full of magma any minute! I have a plan to get you out, but you must get the emerald first!" he told you from his perch.

Understanding the severity of the situation, you knew that your newly found interest in Shadow was just going to have to wait. You continued on. Lightly hopping from one rock to the next... Carefully... Eventually, the magma became more like a river than a pool... It started running past you... faster and faster. The volcano was filling up rapidly. The chaos emerald wasn't much farther! You determinedly took another brave hop to another rock... and very nearly slipped to your doom.

"AHH!!" you cried as you began to fall. However, your reflexes kicked in to save you! At the last moment, your foot landed back on the rock and sprung you back onto a safe patch of ground. You fell onto the black, hard rock ground just barely unharmed.

"(Y/N)!!" Shadow yelled when he saw you slip. He very nearly launched himself forward to save you but withheld himself when he saw you save yourself in the last moment. He gripped his chest nervously and tried to calm his beating heart. "DON'T SCARE ME LIKE THAT!!"

You finally were able to haul yourself back to your feet and you tried your best to ignore answering Shadow... Time wasn't going to let you. You hopped to the next rock.

The end was in sight. Only two more jumps to go. Just as you made your second to the last jump, you watched in horror as the last dry spot to get you to the chaos emerald was submerged in lava. You weren't quick enough! Frustrated, you turned back to Shadow. "There's nowhere left to jump, Shadow!! What do I do?!"

"Working on it!" Shadow replied as he surveyed the area around you. Suddenly, his eyes locked onto something. "(Y/N)! Try jumping onto and then off of the cave wall! Do you think you can make it?!"

The suggestion drew your eyes the wall. It was certainly close enough for you to jump to it, but to then jump against it again to make it the rest of the way...? "I think I can make it, Shadow!" you told him despite not being completely confident. Before Shadow could protest, you sprang from your platform, planted your feet against the wall, and then launched yourself towards the chaos emerald as hard as you could. Failure would not end well... You flew through the air for a moment... and by some miracle, you came crashing down just in front of the chaos emerald. Completely safe.

Excited, you jumped and waved to Shadow. "OH MY GOSH, I HAVEN'T EVER DONE SOMETHING THAT CRAZY!!" you shouted as you hopped around victoriously.

"Is now the best time to be celebrating?!" Shadow asked with an extremely relieved look on his face. He vowed to never put you in a situation like that again.

"Shut up, Shadow! I just did the impossible!"

Suddenly, geysers of hot smoke shot up from the magma and the lava river started splashing around violently. Quickly, you snatched the chaos emerald and stayed as far away from the geyser as possible. Your eyes darted up to Shadow. "Now would be a really good time to escape!!"

Shadow seemed to be bracing himself for something. Then, in the blink of an eye, he teleported over to you..., but his teleportation... had a very negative effect.

CRASH!!! SPLOOSH!!

The entire top floor of the cave above you began to cave in around you and Shadow! Not the mention, the lava, and geysers were becoming only more and more violent. Terrified, you grabbed onto Shadow tightly. Again, you heard him wince in pain, but he used his good arm to hold you close to him protectively despite the pain he was feeling.

"Shadow, what happened?!" you demanded as rocks began showering down.

"Chaos control sent a ripple of energy surging through this volcano... It will erupt faster now! Hold on tight! We're going for a ride!" he shouted as he scooped you into his arms and sprang for the large gap that used to be where the upper cave was.

"Why aren't you using chaos control, Shadow?!" you asked as you clung to him. You could hear the ground vibrating, and smoke lashed up at you and Shadow as if trying to swallow you both whole.

Any more chaos energy and this place will kill us before we can teleport out of here! I have to get us out of here on foot!" he told you.

Suddenly terrified, you figured out what he meant when he said you were going for a ride. As you clung to him, you made sure to not let go of the chaos emerald for a second.

Thinking fast and on his feet, Shadow was able to run along the wall of the cave to return to what was left of the upper cave. He dashed back to the crossroads of tunnels and made a final dash for the exit! Just as he left the tunnel, you heard an explosion and thick ash began filling the tunnels behind Shadow. You squeaked in fear.

"Shadow! A thick, gray cloud is following us!"

"If that cloud catches us, whatever you do, don't breathe it in! That cloud could kill us!" he shouted. His already terrifyingly fast pace increased.

Finally, just when all hope seemed lost, you saw a ray of sunlight and Shadow launched out of the volcano and the both of you were flying through the sky! Shadow whipped out the yellow chaos emerald again. "Chaos control!!" he shouted.

The rainbow colors flew by just as you saw the enormous black ash cloud explode out of the volcano along with magma and lava spewing everywhere. With that one dramatic image to make sure you never forgot your terrifying experience on that very island, you disappeared into the rainbow light portal with Shadow.

--

"Where are we...? This is definitely not an island...," you pointed out as you searched around for some clue as to where you were.

"(Y/N)..., I think... we're... safe...," Shadow huffed wearily. He looked down at the wound in his arm... It was bleeding severely again...

"Shadow!" you shouted as you ran over to him. "You opened your wound again! I'll try to find something to-- Well..., I can't fix it if I have no idea where to find the materials... Um--! Maybe there are some leaves or something that we can--! No... There aren't any trees... Where are we?! There's nothing here!"

The once very calm an collected hedgehog who rescued you from the volcano was now trembling as he grasped at his wound with a blood-soaked glove. His voice was low and serious. "(Y/N)..., I think my wound... I think it's gotten worse... But nothing can hurt us here... That chaos emerald... in reality, that emerald is something else..."

"Shadow, the red emerald doesn't matter right now! What matters right now is you! Are you okay?!" You found yourself kneeling to his level and in a position as if you were about to hug him.

Trying to hide the fact that he was in intense pain, Shadow put on his cold, expressionless face that he always used to give you before he finally opened up to you. Apparently..., he was closing himself off again. "I don't really matter, (y/n). You know that."

"No! Don't say things like that! You saved me! If you don't matter, then I don't matter either! And maybe we don't matter! But I don't care if that's the case. Because you still matter to me! And I know I matter to you, Shadow. So, don't say that. Now, let me look at your arm," you told him with your hand opened to him.

Far less reluctantly than last time, Shadow just shifted his injured arm lightly into your hand so you could inspect it. Deep, red blood was seeping out of the wound... much worse than last time.

"Do you feel light-headed or dizzy, Shadow...?" you asked.

"A little...," he answered truthfully.

"It's because you're losing so much blood... I need to find some way to stop the bleeding! Or at least find someone who can fix you up!" you announced with a plan. "But we can't do that if there's nothing here. Seriously, where are we?! The sky is so black and there aren't any stars..."

Shadow looked up at the sky. "I took us somewhere nothing existed. That chaos emerald you retrieved... It wasn't a chaos emerald..."

"It wasn't...? What do you mean? Our search and trouble in the volcano were for nothing?!"

"No. I sensed a presence in that volcano that was similar to the chaos emeralds..., but it's something better... So much better than the chaos emeralds..."

You looked at him baffled and handed him the red jewel you had found in the volcano only minutes ago. "What... is it...?"

"It's... a Phantom Ruby."