In the Fatal Shadows

January 26th 00:54am, Downtown Station Square.

The evening was well and truly over, the long night of celebration crept to a close and melded towards the early morning. Rouge the bat, thief of the night and feminist, approached the door to a rundown shack. Well, it looked like a door. Majorly disfigured by the years and seasons termites had already had their feed from the ugly timbre. With no hinges, Rouge slid the door to the side, and then pulled it back behind her once she had entered. The room was utterly dark. This didn't bother Rouge, as she didn't need eyes to manuvre in the darkness, she was a bat. She had ears. Above her, was a cushioned pole that stretched across the wall, close to the ceiling, but not close enough so it allowed footing. Rouge cart wheeled forwards and hooked her feet at the top of the pole and lay there, upside down. Before her rest, she thought to herself.

January 25th 11:01pm, Downtown station square, Zephyrsanz Nightclub.

A room crammed with lights and sounds, alcohol and people enjoying themselves. Rouge stepped up to a red echidna named Knuckles. He sat with a young woman and chatted away with her. His face was beet red. "Hey Kucciehead" The crafty bat hollowed.

The girl stood up and gave a cross look before slapping Knuckles in the face. "You told me you were SINGLE!"

"AHHHH no! Don't leave!" Knuckles whined, before quickly turning his attention to Rouge, staring at her crudely "Hey bitch, why you have to go do that?"

"Number 1: Never make out with a human, Number 2: I was gonna tell you something,"

"Well I got not much else to do now you ruined my party, so I suppose so,"

"What party? Go find someone like you… anyways…,"

"Yeah, you were supposed to be telling me something!" Knuckles slammed his fist on the table, shattering it into a thousand pieces of splint.

Rouge looked at him like he was an idiot, then firmly closed her eyes "I was trying to say that Shadow is behaving rather strangely tonight, I couldn't find him anywhere here and he'd said he was gonna meet me,"

"Maybe he didn't like the fact that Chris was gonna be here," Knuckles pointed over to the bar. Chris an 18 year old man was prancing around, heavily under the influence of liquor.

"I…am…withit!"

"What the fuck?" Rouge asked.

"No, you mean that's why Sonics not here," Knuckles replied.

"I guess you're right," Rouge firmly agreed.

11:06pm, Downtown Station square, Sky Scraper no.063

Sonic leapt from building to building in a search for something. "I know you're here somewhere, you monster, so come on out,"

He searched around drastically, an the second he shifted his head to the right, he locked onto a slender shape. "Ah-ha, I found you. You may have been created by Eggman, but your goin' down pal,"

A head from a distance looked at the approaching hedgehog and gapped it as he caught track of its advance. "Don't think you can get away pal," Sonic chuckled.

Indeed the blue hedgehog was right. What he chased lacked speed. He approached it closer and closer, and then leapt upon the creature as it looked upwards. Sonic thrusted his arm forwards, and the shadowed face pulled backwards. Sonics' hand caught onto a cold, wet furry object. He pulled back and it flung of the monster. Sonic inspected it closely "This is a green scarf, so you must be…"

"That's right you moron," The 'creature' replied. "I'm just like you, from your world,"

He pulled out a torch and shined it onto his red face. "I'm Knife, Knife the Dragon. Not at your service,"

"I'm very sorry," Sonic shrugged.

"Damn right you are," Knife replied.

"Well I was looking for something had created…," Sonic revealed as he handed back Knifes' scarf.

"You say … I have purposes with him. Where is he hiding?" Knife spoke keenly.

"To be honest, I don't really know. If I did, then I would've trashed his base a long time ago," Sonic shrugged.

"When you called me a creature, what were you really looking for?" Knife asked, placing his scarf around his neck carefully.

"I was looking for…"

An explosion not too far off ended his sentence.

25th January 7:35pm, Unknown Location, Eggman's base.

"Eggman! Where are you hiding!? Come out so I can kill you," Shadow cried as he rose from the floor.

There was silence. Shadow could no-longer hear the tele-com that Eggman used. All but the roaring path of flames and destruction behind him. He slid into the next room, holding a pole taken from the rubble he had created previously. The room ahead of him was dark, and as he walked there he too plunged into darkness. It was impossible to see anything.

"Shadow," Eggmans voice blurted out from the darkness.

At that second the sentence ended, the lights flicked on. Claws extended from every hole on the walls of the room in a large spaghetti mess of cables. Shadow backed off, but the door behind him had shut. He smacked away the oncoming arms and shattered them before smacking away a few more. "Don't think you can keep up when they regenerate. You're done for." Eggman cackled as he stood at the back of the room.

Shadow used chaos control and appeared before Eggman at the back of the room and with his large pole at hand, Shadow performed a downwards cut, however, the pole locked when a claw grabbed ahold of it. Shadow was forced to let go and instead tried a spin dash against Eggman. Fortunately with this method, oncoming claws were spun away when they tried to handle him. The Doctor pressed a button on his controller and a large glass screen separated Shadow from him. "Carry on spinning, you'll only fatigue sooner or later,"

Shadow carried on spinning in a spin dash form continuously. All Eggman had to do was wait. Shadow began to feel weaker, he never spun this long before a dash in his life, and the pain began to shoot up him, slowing him down.

"Frig,"

Shadow had to quit this now. If he did, he'd have some energy left to avoid the mess of claws on wires approaching him. He left his spin dash and began once more to hit them away. He dodged left and right as claws smacked to the floor missing him. Shadow gave a short laugh, but as he did, a single claw hooked onto his arm. He pulled and leapt up, but his jump was slowed and all the claws hooked themselves onto shadow from the arms downwards and halted his movements. The claws began to dig in, and make him bleed. Eggman gave a sneer look. "You see now?" Eggman chuckled.

"See what? Tell me Doctor! Why are you laughing!?"

25th January 7:50pm Unknown Location, Eggman's Base

"The letter I sent you was a trap. I never killed my sister, Maria, I used it to get you here,"

"You evil bastard!" Shadow scowled as he tried pulling. The power he gave was too little, one claw alone was weak, but hundreds together was more powerful. Inside himself he cried, but he had to save tears for later… not now, he couldn't reveal his inner weakness. His head fell in helplessness.

"You want to know why I brought you here? I suppose I should let you know of your demise," Eggman walked over to a larger grey device behind him. It was like a giant boiler with a door; a large pipe extending from it. "Behind this door is my ultimate Mecha, Neo Sonic Grade – SH. The fuel I used for previous Mechas was useless. Chaos Emeralds only lured Sonic and other power supplied were useless. So what would be better…" Eggman approached Shadow an smiled darkly "…Than the Ultimate Lifeform,"

Shadows eyes opened wide in surprise.

"I was studying Gerald's' files and he claims power more unimaginable from the Ultimate Lifeform, but I can't see it. Which makes me believe that you are reserving most of it. But if we start to drain it, you will resort to your reserved power unleashing it to me so I can use it to power my machine. It will be invincible."

Eggman hobbled over to a computer and began to tap in some values, before pulling the lever to begin the process. The claws attached to shadow began to glow green and already he could already feel power begin drained from him rapidly. The extraction was extremely painful caused him to cry in agony. "GHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!"

It was incredible, he had never felt so much burn of pain inside him at every inch of his body. His brain was aflame and he could no longer think and became blinded by the pain. He began to tilt forward as he lost consciousness and the claws continued to drain from him. Eggman looked worried. He wanted power, but if Geralds files were a lie he was killing him. He gambled with continuing on with the energy drain. A few minutes on, and shadow stopped moving completely. Eggman couldn't take it anymore and switched of the machine, immediately causing the claws to stop drawing energy. The Doctor moved close to the screen and looked at him apprehensively. Shadow lay their still. Suddenly, he heard breathing again. But something bothered him. Under his breath, the black hedgehog began laughing. The laughing was cold. His spines began to move and he opened his eyes. His eyes were red and heartless. A glow of black energy swirled around the hedgehog and he thrusted through the claws in an extremely fast rampage, shattering them all beyond regeneration. The blood covering his body began to vashish and his wounds closed.

"Easy Shadow," Eggman replied.

Shadow said nothing, and leered at him. His eyes seemed more focused than before. He charge forward and shattered the reinforced glass and charged into a black aura as he smashed the large boiler-like machine concealing the Mecha Sonic Grade – SH. A spiny set of long claws halted the dark Shadow's advance. A set of eyes looked at him and pushed Shadow away slamming him outside the building.

With Shadow out of the picture, Eggman looked at his creation with glee. "I created you and as your master, we can rule the world together, at last! Ahhahaha!"

Mecha Sonics silver and red face looked straight through Eggman as if he was nobody. "I serve nobody who is weaker than I," Mecha Sonic simply replied and shot out the building on rockets."

January 25th 8:19pm Forest, Outside station square.

Shadow pulled himself up from the wreckage of trees and held his head. His head pulsed with pain. "Urrrgggh, what is this sensation I feel?"

"Shadow, collect the Chaos Emeralds. Then you can destroy them,"

"Them? What is it meant by them…? Possibly Eggman…yes,"

"Indeed, heheh."

There was a thought in his head that wasn't there before. Shadow brushed off the debris and looked towards the city. "I wonder… how I ended up here…" Shadow thought to himself briefly before running of into the distance.

January 26th 9:53am, Suburban Station square, Chris mansion.

"Oh how I'm sick of this place," Amy complained as she stomped into the workshop.

"Whats up Amy? What's with the change of clothes and the angry face?"

The pink hedgehog began to stomp on the floor and swung her Piko Piko hammer around and around "Sonic didn't turn up to the party last night and Chris vomited on me!" she huffed "When I go an give Chris a piece of my mind he says 'Can you go away I got a headache!' Uffff…"

"Amy, don't blame Chris for everything… as much as I'd like to myself. Sonic had to do something really important last night. He was trying to find on of Eggmans creations,"

At that second the TV blurted out its news report. " Last night at roughly 11:10pm the power plant at Downtown station square was attacked by a Mechanical hedgehog resembling the hero Shadow the hedgehog. It was believed the attack was motivated by a Chaos Emerald that powered the plant. 50 people were killed."

"You suppose the creature Sonic was looking for was this?" Amy asked.

"I think so,"

January 26th 9:55am, Downtown Station Square.

"… Most areas of the city have had their power restored with temporary solutions until the plant is rebuilt."

"Shadow," Rouge said to herself as she looked up at the large flat screen television on the side of a skyscraper. "Maybe Eggman has something to do with Shadow not turning up last night."

"Rouge, I'm here but late… sorry," A familiar voice spoke into her ear.

"Oh Shadow! What the heck were you up to last night!?" Rouge asked.

A pain pulsed through his head as he tried to think "Ugh, I attacked Eggmans base…,"

"Oh! You ok?" Rouge asked as she helped him up.

"I'm fine." Shadow replied.

Rouge knew that something wasn't right "Shadow, meet me later at my house ok?"

"Ok,"

"But please Shadow. Come this time."

"I will," Shadow turned away and left her. "Find the Chaos Emeralds." Shadows inner thoughts reminded him.

He still had a job to do. "I'm reading through your memories, indeed interesting. Rouge may seem to own a Chaos emerald herself. Go there tonight."

January 26th 12:54 pm, Downtown Station Square, New Station Square

Sonic dashed down the sidewalk looking frantically for someone. "Eggman… I know where you are," Sonic spoke briefly to himself.

Eventually he caught sight of a construction site. Sonic screeched to a halt and glanced around. A glint caught his eye. "Ah! A Chaos emerald," Sonic smiled as he walked over to the blue jewel. "I gotta show this to Tails" He smiled.

"Not so fast!"

The sudden voice made Sonic jump. He quickly turned around. "Eggman!"

"Sonic"

"You here for a fight Eggy?" Sonic joked.

"No,"

The unsuspecting answer made the hedgehog almost trip over in shock. "I'm here because I need to ask your help. My latest Mecha became out of control and is no pilfering Chaos emeralds for its own desires. You must be careful with that Emerald!"

"Why do you want me to help you stop something you originally created to destroy me? What a joke," Sonic complained.

"Shut your whining. If that machine gets ahold of all seven Chaos emeralds you'll perish for sure. And Sonic…"

"What?"

"If you see Shadow, keep an eye on him,"

The sentence puzzled Sonic and he quickly shook away the word. But it clinged on. Why did Eggman say 'keep an eye on him'? Shadow was Shadow, but then again… there was a lot of things Sonic didn't know about him.

January 26th 7:30pm, Downtown Station Square.

Rouge sat waiting in her small shack. As soon as night began to draw close, Shadow came in. "Wow I'm impressed," Rouge looked at him in shock.

"Rouge… you want to know about last night don't you?" Shadows head fell as he sat himself next to Rouge.

"I do want to know,"

"I went after Eggman," Shadow revealed.

"And why was that?"

"Eggman claimed… he claimed he had killed Maria! So I went to go kill him. I destroyed his robots but when I got to him, claws grabbed me and…Uggghhhh!"

He felt an overwhelming pulse blast through his head.

"Shadow what happened? Whats wrong!?"

"I-its strange. E-everytime I try to think I delve into an incredible pain!"

"Shadow. She must not yet know!"

As he began to clear his mind, the pain began to lift. Shadow gave a sigh of relief. "I've never felt something so painful in my life…

Rouge looked at him with concern. "What did he do to you? Something must have happened to make you suffer this pain you do right now,"

Shadow thought to himself "Heh, Rouge you wouldn't understand the voices I hear. You'd think I'm insane,"

"That's right Shadow. They won't believe you if you speak of me."

Several hours later, Rouge dived into sleep, and hung from the pole on the ceiling the way any bat does. "I smell the Emeralds scent here,"

Shadow nodded and stepped over to a small chest, immediately on his first try he had found the Emerald without trying. "Grab ahold of the Emerald! Then we may become closer!"

Shadow placed his hand firmly on the Emerald and a bright light emitted from it as the power began being sucked by it. "Chaos Control!" Shadow disappeared from the house before rouge could notice and teleported to a building block. The Emerald continued to glow and remained fixed to his hand. "I can't let go of it! My body… my body is draining it of its power!?" Shadow cried.

"I need the Chaos Emeralds power to become closer to you…"

Eventually the Emerald disconnected from his body. "I should store this away with me, until I find the others…

"I want to kill,"

"What?"

"Don't you? Don't you want to kill?"

"Eggman perhaps,"

"When I meant by them, I didn't mean Eggman alone. Kill them. Kill everyone!"

His head pulsed with pain again, but this time it felt different. The Red Chaos Emerald began to glow again, but brighter this time. Shadow began to breathe heavily and keeled over "Why are you doing this to me!? WHY?"

"Shadow. You are the Ultimate Lifeform. I am the Ultimate Lifeform. I am you. I am helping you. I am fulfilling Gerald's wish."

Shadow gritted his teeth as he held of the monstrosity of pain that his him, but the pulsing he couldn't take for much longer. He began to feel the same sensation as he did before at Eggmans base. His vision became blurred and he began to feel light headed. He was going to pass out. "GAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH!" He screamed. But not for long. After his short burst of pain he collapsed, face flat on the floor.

"Hehehehe…"

January 26th 9:13pm, Suburban Station Square, Chris Mansion

Sonic had finally reached the Mansion after a long day of work protecting and touring the city, having some fun while he was doing it. He entered the workshop where tails tinkered with his gadgets, however the furry orange fox wasn't in sight. "HEY SONIC!" A girlish voice shrieked.

Sonic turned his face in fear as a pink hedgehog leapt on him as if he were a fluffy bunny.

Suddenly, Amy changed her tone, lifted her hand to the right and slapped him across the face. "WHERE THE HECK WHERE YOU!?" Amy screamed into Sonics face. "I was waiting here all day for you to come back!"

"What's with the panic? I got Tails a Chaos Emerald. Thought he might want it," Sonic replied, rubbing his sore cheek.

"Gahh, Men. You don't understand! A lot happened while you were away!" Amy complained.

"Like…?"

"LIKE? Didn't you notice that the electric power plant in station square was trashed by a robot?"

"Nope,"

Amy almost fell over in helplessness. "Y-your impossible! The significance is that it got away with a Chaos emerald!"

Suddenly, that word jogged something in Sonics' memory.

"I'm here because I need to ask your help. My latest Mecha became out of control and is no pilfering Chaos emeralds for its own desires. You must be careful with that Emerald!"

"Why do you want me to help you stop something you originally created to destroy me? What a joke," Sonic complained.

"Shut your whining. If that machine gets ahold of all seven Chaos emeralds you'll perish for sure."

Sonic began to stare into space as he pictured it. Amy waved her hand in front of his face, but the blue hedgehog failed to respond. She then withdrew her large yellow and pink Piko Piko hammer and slammed him over the head with it. "AHHHH! What the heck was that for!?" Sonic yelled as he became distorted by the impact of the mallet.

Suddenly Tails burst into the room. "Hey Sonic! Just in time, something terrible has happened!"

Sonics expression changed from annoyed to serious. "What?"

"I'll explain when we get on the Tornado," Tails gestured for the blue hedgehog to follow him.

Sonic mounted upon the great blue aeroplane. "Hey Tails, how about using this?"

Sonic gleamed the blue emerald in the orange foxes face. "Wow neat! I'll input it into the Tornado right away!" Tails smiled for a short amount of time before quickly adjusting to the situation. He flicked on the engine and the blue plane took off.

In a jet of smoke it plunged into the darkness of the night.

"Tails, what's going on?" Sonic asked.

"People everywhere… dead," Tails revealed.

"What? How did that happen…" Sonic thought to himself again about the Mecha Sonic that Eggman talked about.

Not too long of a travel the plane landed in a park of green in Station Square Downtown. "Tails you should stay here," Sonic told Tails.

"Ok,"

Sonic walked cautiously through the green and close to the road. Crumpled cars lay on the side of the road and in them were disfigured bodies of dead people. On the sides of the road, a young woman lay she crawled along the floor. She bled from her leg, on of them were missing. Sonic rushed to her aid. "What happened?" He asked.

The woman coughed and looked up at the hedgehog weakly. "Sonic… I'm so glad you're here… but it's too late for me…"

That was when Sonic then noticed a gaping hole in her back which matted her long blonde hair with blood. "Tell me what happened!?" Sonic demanded, his eyes were wide in shock.

"It was… Shadow… He… went insane. And something about his eyes… something was different about him… like he was…" The woman began to cough up blood and he head and arms fell as she went limp. Eventually, she stopped moving. Sonic went pale in the face. He felt as if he was going to throw up. He swallowed and tried to act tough, and turned back to the tornado. It was far too dangerous here.

Tails nodded his head left and right as he listened to a song on the radio on his tornado.

"And I'll try to save the world
'cause in the end I know
I'm the chosen one…"

Tails began to hum to the catchy tune and smiled. He then opened his eyes and wondered what Sonic was up to. He peeked out of his Tornado and looked out towards the darkness. "Hmmm, better put the headlights on," He briefly reminded himself as he fumbled for the switch. He tapped it and a bright light hacked into the darkness. The light reflected something back at him which put him on edge. Eyes.

Tails lent over and examined them. The eyes shifted forward. The light revealed a shape with an odd black aura.

"Hmhmhmhmhm…" The eerie voice echoed through the darkness.

Tails tensed up. "uh…uh…. SONIC!!!!"

Sonic heard the call, to his surprise. He knew that something would happen to Tails, and maybe for himself he could see this Shadow… if it was him. Sonic rushed to Tails rescue, but he was seconds to late. Already a black auraed figure hacked away at the Tornado. The little fox tried evading its unusually sharp claws as it scraped the side of the plane. The foxes face was covered in scratches. "Give me the chaos emerald!"

Sonic squinted at the creature as he looked at it. It did look like shadow, but there was not a single red marking on it, it was completely of a black tone. It had sharp claws from its hands and indeed was not a hedgehog. It leapt up and thrusted its amazing claws forwards at the fox. Tails rolled of the side of the Tornado and clambered onto his feet retreating to a tree. In his hand he held the blue shiny emerald hard and tight, not giving in to the threats made by it.

"Back off!" Sonic cried at the monster.

The black creature chuckled and closed its right palm, revealing the blades on his fingers. "Oh how I'm sick of this!" Sonic homed onto it with a homing attack. The black creature jumped up and began to perform a homing attack simultaneously.

"Impossible! How can it do that!? Sonic something isn't right about all of this,"

Sonic occupied himself fighting the monster, but it was light fighting himself. Tails looked at his blue emerald as it began to shine brightly. "Sonic! This Emerald is reacting with another emerald nearby. That must mean its using another Emerald as a power source!"

Sonic grinned as he leapt backwards and exited his homing attack mode. "Heh, I'll have to take it from it then. This'll be fun!"

Sonic charged forward and thrusted forward a kick. The black creature swiped forward, knocking away Sonics foot. The blue leapt backwards and flashed though the park before returning in a charge towards the monster. It was unexpected and the creature fell flat on the floor, the Emerald fell from its grasp. "No!" It cried.

Sonic walked over and tried to pick it up, but was pushed away by a tackle as the black creature overwhelmed him. For a split second while the Emerald was out of the hand of the monster it looked somewhat more like Shadow when the aura began to part. But as soon as it grabbed the emerald again, the black aura surrounding it began to charge up again and slammed hard into Tails making him drop his precious Emerald. The black creature picked it up and sniggered. "Hmhmhm… pathetic fools. You think you can keep me away from the Emeralds? They belong to me now. They always will do from now on,"