Chapter Text
Shadow was cruising around Green Hill looking for any of the chaos emeralds. He was sort of hoping for the green one. That one seemed to clash the least with his own colors while still having some nice contrast. Being the ultimate life-form also means always looking presentable. Emerald included of course.
While skating across the grassy lands and breaking rocks, Shadow got a bit lost in his thoughts. Why did he need the emerald again? Oh yeah after the last squabble he had with Eggman together with Sonic, all of the chaos emeralds got scattered. Again. Just how everything always goes wrong somehow when he's around Sonic. Maybe it's his lack of self-preservation skills or his reckless and thoughtless behavior or the constant stream of unfunny jokes but something about Sonic just pisses Shadow off. And the worst part? With all his negative qualities Sonic is still useful. Shadow can't deny that the blue hedgehog is strong, fast and agile in a way he isn't but he would never state that verbally. Any compliment would go straight to the blue blur's head and inflate his ego even more. And the last thing Shadow needs is an overconfident idiot, he's already got enough on his plate with just the idiot part.
As the hedgehog hybrid let his thoughts wander around that stupid Sonic he kept smashing rock after rock, hoping for one of the emeralds to appear. He was hoping that being hidden inside the bedrock was what the emeralds wanted to do, never appreciating being out for just anyone to grab. No, wielding an emerald means earning it. At least that is what Shadow thought. He thought that even something as simple as a meal has to be earned and is never granted. Life isn't easy, never has been easy and never will be. That's the experience Shadow got to make all those years ago. Maybe that was another point he and Sonic disagreed on and consequently fuels the ever-lasting fight between them. Sonic is always ready and open to relax even when he hasn't done anything to earn it, how could he! Half the time Sonic and Eggman fight some village or town get torn to shreds and the blue hero thinks he did an adequate job. That is not a break well earned; it's a sad testament to the fact that Sonic doesn't know what he's doing. Ever.
Smashing through yet another rock he found what he was looking for. "Chaos Emerald," he said picking up the precious gem. Smirking he whispered, "There you are." "Chaos Control!" The dark hedgehog yelled before teleporting away and resuming his cruising. With one emerald it should be a lot easier to find the others. But before Shadow could get very far the ground started to shake as a massive blue wave of energy came his way and knocked him out of balance.
"Sonic," was the last the hybrid muttered before he revved up his air shoes. The best course of action would be to find the place where the energy wave originated. The reason behind the wave, very likely Sonic, would be close by. Shadow set off to find the blue headache and before long he could hear the sound of rings being collected. Diverting his course, Shadow aimed for the direction of the sound and soon enough found Sonic running around. With a rather angry hit to the face, Shadow threw Sonic out of balance. The blue hedgehog crashed into a few rocks, causing a bunch of Flickies to fly up in distress. “Yes I know. We're fighting again,” Sonic told the birds in a disappointed voice. He didn't like fighting Shadow; sure they had their differences but come on what friends are exactly alike? Not that Shadow gave the downed hero a lot of time to think before revving up another hit but this time Sonic could dodge in time to dish out his own punch to Shadow’s gut as payback.
“Listen man, I'm kinda on a mission here,” the speedster tried to explain but Shadow just wouldn't listen. Instead the hybrid was aiming for Sonic’s head with his punches and kicks as if he wanted to kill the blue hog. As their fight continued the two hedgehogs exchanged blows to the face, gut and a few stray hits landed on unfortunately held limbs. Between the hits Sonic tried to get away from Shadow a bit so he could return to his friends who were currently investigating the major tremor from before. Eggman must've had a bigger plan, at least that's what the team decided was most likely. However Sonic couldn't join his friends with Shadow on his tail and shaking him off wasn't working out in the hero's favor either. The hedgehogs kept circling each other, hitting one another with spindash after spindash until they crashed headfirst into each other. Both landed on their backs, groaning. Sonic got up before Shadow could. “Look dude, as much as I love a good race or a sparring session I have to get back to my frien-“ the blue speedster was cut off by a distant rumble coming from the mountain the team had planned to investigate, “Oh no! Everyone-!” Again Sonic was cut off but this time it was Shadow landing a direct hit onto the other's face causing him to be dizzy for a moment. “Learn to focus,” Shadow reprimanded in a monotonous voice. Coming back to his senses Sonic saw himself in an impossible situation to get out off. The hedgehog before him wouldn't listen to reason, a fight would be wasting his time and rings and whatever Eggman was up to could only get worse by the second. So in a split second the blue hero decided to forgo his usual strategies. “EGGMAN?!”, he yelled as he pointed behind Shadow who promptly turned around, “Where-?” Was all he could say before Sonic spindashed into him, knocking him over before running off in the opposite direction. It's not like Sonic didn't feel bad about having to play dirty but there was literally no other way for him to get an opportunity to join with the others. The hero could already hear all the complaints and the “where have you been”s thrown his way. At least this time he could blame Shadow for his own tardiness. Speaking of whom, the hedgehog hybrid got up only a few moments after Sonic had left. Somehow he was even more pissed off than before. Whatever had the hero all antsy must've been on that mountain, Shadow concluded internally. Looking at the mountain he noticed the fault line that was snaking towards the peak and the eerie ring of clouds near the top. Maybe it was worth checking out, at worst it would be a chance to beat Sonic up again and at best it would be a chance to beat Sonic up again. Oh and figure out what caused that shock wave too.
And with that Shadow had his air shoes kick into high gear as he sped after the blue blur. Digging the chaos emerald from his quills, the dark hedgehog used its power to teleport closer to the mountain bit by bit while still maintaining high speed. As Shadow raced up the mountain an uneasy feeling crept up in his gut. No it wasn't some of the hits Sonic had landed on him previously, those would mildly ache at best. Shadow had a feeling of needing to be more than battle ready, he couldn't explain nor shake the feeling. It was making the usually levelheaded hedgehog a bit anxious, highly unusual for him. As he got closer to the top he could hear the fight on the peak, it sounded like it came from a cave. Odd, that mountain never had a cave but perhaps the fault line had caused one to form.
When Shadow managed to reach the entrance of the cave he could see what had Sonic so worried: dozens upon dozens of Badniks circling around Amy, Knuckles, Rouge, Tails and Sonic with Sonic building up speed to dash into Eggman whose Eggcrusher was holding some type of rock? “Sonic, wait!” The two tailed fox yelled at his adoptive brother but when has that guy ever listened to advice? Sonic was running towards Eggman before switching to a spindash and hitting the claw of the Eggcrusher. Just as the blue hero hit the claw his friends screamed after him, “Sonic, no!” At the same time Shadow used the chaos emerald to teleport closer to Sonic, hoping that if he could just grab that annoying guy he could teleport both of them back a bit but Shadow was too slow. The rock, or prism or whatever you’d like to call it, broke with a massive surge of energy. Shadow could feel it mix with his own chaos energy in an almost painful way. Glancing to his side briefly he could see Knuckles… splitting apart?
That was the last thing Shadow saw before the energy wave knocked him out cold. There were shards of crystals floating all around him, it was cold too. In his daze Shadow could hear the distant voices he had become so familiar with. “You can try but you’ll never beat me in a race,” he heard Sonic say. “Cream would love to hang out with you again, stop by when you can,” came from Amy. He heard Tails speak next, “Just let me try and upgrade them. I don't get why you’re so protective over shoes.” “Oh yeah, think you take me on? Think again!” Knuckles had said once. “It's not that bad once you give it a try, handsome,” Rouge had told him a long time ago. “Fraternizing with the other rodents will only drag you down into misery,” he heard Eggman say before Shadow felt a twinge of pain and then everything started rapidly turning.
Then he felt being pulled down, except nothing was grabbing him. Was he falling? By the time Shadow came to and opened his eyes he realized he was, in fact, falling. From the sky to be precise. Before he could regain control over his body the dark hedgehog crashed onto the ground next to a trash container. The concrete beneath him felt rough and ragged. Wait, concrete? Shadow got up with a groan, rubbing his temple. The dark hedgehog felt around in his quills, the chaos emerald was still there. That was good, at least some kind of relief. That is when the hybrid started to look around. He was in some alleyway in a dark and rather dirty city. Okay so he was not in Green Hill anymore, unusual but alright. Some of his G.U.N. missions had taken Shadow a great deal across the world, but he'd never seen a city like this. Deciding it was best to get a feel for his surroundings the hedgehog started walking around. It didn't take long before he spotted a logo that could only belong to Eggman. No other sane or insane person would choose to have a mustache that ugly. Spotting the logo warranted caution, did he get teleported to the capital of the Eggman empire? Hopefully not. Shadow decides to try and arouse as little suspicion as possible. When he reached a Main Street, he could see Mobians being transported on conveyor belts, all of them looking rather depressed.
He then spotted a rather large Mobian and Shadow recognized the built immediately. It was Big! But in an overall...? A little odd but Shadow thought Big could help point him out of this mess. Approaching the large cat the hedgehog spoke, “Big! Have you seen Sonic or Eggman or, hell, I’ll even take the fox.” The cat only avoided the gaze of the much smaller Mobian beside him on the conveyor belt, clearly afraid of something. The hedgehog found it odd for the usually friendly, yet ditzy, cat to not respond at all. “Hello? I am speaking with you, Big,” he prodded but still no answer from the cat. Frustrated at the uncooperativeness Shadow huffed and stepped off the conveyor belt. He walked towards a building and leaned his back against the cold wall. Something was very, very wrong but he couldn't figure out what. The nagging ache in his bones didn't help either. Shadow usually only felt an ache similar to this when he had overused his chaos energy but that wasn't the case this time. All of this felt so wrong, did Eggman really beat them this time and take over?
No, he couldn't, right? The Doctor is some lone loser with delusions of grandeur, he… can't beat Sonic and most certainly not beat Shadow. No, never. There had to be something bigger going on, so the dark hedgehog decided to investigate.
First, and uncomfortable, stop: find Sonic. Even if he didn't know what was going on Shadow would get an opportunity to beat some sense into the blue idiot. It would have to suffice for now.