The night was dark, and the rain created a misty fog that lay over the city like a blanket. Families sit on the street around oil drums with a fire in them, and inside tents that line the city streets as homes for the homeless. A small unit of GUN soldiers walk down the street, keeping their eyes on everything and everyone. Scanning the crowds for those who are wanted for their crimes against the government. They reach a dark alley way at the far end of the street, and examine it with open eyes, keeping on alert like an owl in the night. Water dripped from the roof tops above into some old dumpsters filled to the brim with trash from years ago. They notice nothing and continue on their way. Suddenly, a figure appears from the darkness, he wears a dark rain coat. He removes the hood, and lays up against the dumpster and pulls a small hunting blade from his jacket. Carefully examining it, he puts the blade to the concrete and starts to sharpen it. It makes a scratchy sound, like a saw cutting through wood. He looks up for a moment, and stares into an old broken mirror. He notices something he hasn't payed attention too in a long time. He sees his red eyes, black quills with the red streaks along them. He says his name to hear what it sounds like.
"Shadow The Hedgehog." He says quietly. Lightning strikes over head and thunder takes it's place in the sky. He takes the blade, and puts it back in his pocket. He walks to the entrance of the alley, and peeks around the corners checking for guards. None, he bolts towards the opposite side of the street, and into the alleyway. Checks again to see if anyone had spotted him, no one seemed to have notice. He turned around and walked up the alleyway, passing by old century cars, and crumbling old buildings. He walks through an old warehouse filled with last century rusting GUN robots. He goes out the main doors and is in an open street, checks his surrondings and rooftops for possible troops. When everything is all clear he walks across the street and into an abandon apartment building. He closes the door with ease. Walks up to the top story and opens up a creaky brown door. Looks around, and walks in. And slams the door shut. He takes the rain coat off and hangs it on a coat rack, that is barely holding. He goes over to the wall at the far end of the room, and takes out a thumb tack and pulls an old photo out of his pocket. His old friends, long lost to him. Shadow takes the picture and puts it on the wall. He falls backwards into a chair, looks at the picture. And sheds a single tear.

A gunshot, a scream, then another. Shadow bolts awake with a pounding heart. He stands up with a pistol in hand, with caution he opens the blinds and peers through the boards place over the windows. Outside was a gang of humans, most likely homeless, leaning over a dead body of a women and her child. They loot the bodies of clothing and money. Stealing their belongings then throwing the bodies in the dumpster. Shadow closed the blinds and turned around and turned his vision to the floor. This was the most abandoned part of town. The women must have been escaping the larger more populated area, to get away from the communism of GUN, Shadow thought about it. He never forgot the days of his past, 200 years ago, where life had begun to collapse around him. No one to help, nothing he could do to stop it. Their voices still scared into his head. He was silent, and put his head up aginst the wall,

"God dammit!" punching the wall with all his anger and rage. Smashing a hole right through to the next room and ripped his arm right out of the wall. Shadow lays his head on the counter and thinks. He reaches for the ammo on the counter, he loads it into the pistol and cocks it back, he walks over to the closet and rips out a veteran GUN jacket, black with red arm lines and throws it on along with a pair of black jeans. Carfully he puts the gun in the inside pocket of the jacket and walks out into the street. Throws the hood over his head and begins walking.

He keeps his eyes on the sky for helicopters and seeking drones. Reaching an alley way, he takes out the knife from the night before, studies it and nods. Then, he pulls out a second object, a climber. It shimmered with a glow of silver, he juggled it in his hand and jumped onto the wall, throwing all his weight and muscle through the climber and into the brick. First he clings the to wall, and slowly progresses. Then wall bounces to the wall opposite of him and clings to that, now running at full speed up the wall. Using the climber to scale the building, and the knife to keep him balanced. He reaches, the roof, and goes into a full sprint. Jumping from roof to roof, crossing alley way gaps and climbing higher and higher from building to building. He reached a ledge, one with a straight drop to ground floor, a good twenty stories or so. He jumped over the ledge and held to it, feet up against the wall, and his head pointing down. Holding his breath, Shadow let go with one hand and got into a snowboarding postion, then letting go completely, he grinded his way down the wall, sparks shooting up behind the shoes that once allowed him to float, now drained completely of energy. He jumps off the wall and clings to the fire escape just before he hits the ground. Shadow lets go, and hits the ground in a crouched postion. Stands back up straight and walks to a door and knocks. A slit opens up above, and two eyes appear.

"Password." a deep heavy voice says.

"Final Words." Shadow says, the slit closes and the metal door swings open.

"Welcome." The man says, he was muscular and with griddy black teeth, smelled like he hadn't had a bath in years, which was probably true due today's standards. Shadow walks in, past crooks and thugs, murderers and rapists. All arguing and beating each other within inches of each other's lives. He spots the bartender and walks over. "Hot whiskey, strong." he tells the bartender. The tender nods and pulls out a shot glass and a bottle filled with red whiskey and poors a glass. "I need to speak with Scrouge, any idea where I can find him." Shadow asks.

"What's it to you?" The man asks.

"Buisness. Involving GUN." Shadow responds. The bartender looks at him, with squinting eyes of stinking death.

"He's, in the back..." He says, pointing to the door. Shadow nods and drinks the shot of whiskey. He throws the glass and knocks over bottles of liquor, making them spill all over the shelfs.

"What the fuck!" The tender yells, as he goes to pick up the mess. Shadow walks over to the door, and opens it with ease. The room is covered with in the red royalty wallpaper, and clean polished wood covered the floor. At the very back of the room sat a green hedgehog in a leather chair, with two scars across his chest, and wore a leather jacket. Their were two red foxes, one feeding him grapes, and the other waving a small feather fan, treating him like royalty. Shadow walked closer, until he was a good few feet away.

"Scourge," Shadow announced his presence. Scourge came out of his little day dreaming and opened his eyes.

"What the hell?" he said. "Who are you and what do you want?" Shadow removed his hood, and Scrouge almost immediatly realized who it was. "Oh! Shadow, how nice of you to come by!" he said with an evil grin.

"Nothing much, I just want to know a few things." he said.

"Like what?"

"Like, what do you know about GUN...People, HQ's...Importations on weapons, and alliances?" He asked, with a silent touch to his voice. Scrouge looked at him with eyes of worry.

"Why do you want to know?" Scourge growled with glowing eyes.

"Because I know your on their payroll." Scourge's eyes of worry, went to blazing anger. "I found your name when I raided the Delta base last night. The weapons, you import to them, I want to know where you get those weapons." Shadow said.

"Why should I tell you, you, you fucking low life! Tina! Nina! Put this hedgehog in his place!" The two foxes reached for their belts, Shadow whipped out his pistol and shot the two of them dead, landing a headshot on the two of them. "Oh shit, oh shit..." Scourge whipsered, Shadow paced up to him and grabbed him by the neck, nearly choking him.

"Who the hell is giving you the weapons!" Shadow yells.

"I'll never tell you, you fucking piece of shit!" Scourge spits out. Then, Shadow took Scrouge and threw him across the room, smashing open the door and having him land right in the middle of bar. Blood was smeared all over the floor. Shadow walked over to Scrouge's body, and too his surprisement. He was trying to get up. "I said tell me! Tell me who is giving you the weapons!" smacking Scrouge with the butt of his pistol.

"Never, tell you. Bitch." Shadow's anger swelled up and down. Just then a voice came forward behind him.

"So, Shadow The Hedgehog." It was a very heavy voice. He turned his head to see a large built man, standing before him. With an iron pipe in his hands. "GUN's got a pretty damn big reward on your head. Why don't I take it off yer' back for ya." Then the man ran forward with the pipe, Shadow dodged the first swing, but took a blow to the chest from the man's foot and smashed into a cabinent filled with glass bottles. He felt like he had just been kicked by a bull at full force. The man then ran forward again, this time with half the bar with him, with baseball bats, pipes, and knives, all in hand for ripping him apart. Shadow got up and whipped out his pistol, and shot the cabinent behind the counter. The bullet smashed on the handle of the cabinent. Causing a spark, and igniting the spilled liquor, and causing the entire back of the bar to explode into a ball of flaming death. The explosion knocks the thugs backwards into the wall, and causes beams to fall on top of them. Crushing their bodies to the floor. Shadow walked over to Scourge who was now trying to crawl to safety, picked him up by the collar of his jacket. And asked the question again.

"Where the hell are you getting these weapons, or so help me god, I will smash your face into every one of the remaining windows, and then cook your damn head in whiskey!" Shadow said with a loud, deep, and serious voice. Now, Scrouge snapped.

"Alright! Alright!" he said, begging for mercy. "His name is John Garrison, he's the head minister of the black market weapon cartel. The guy is living in a life of fortune, huge penthouse at the top of the city. Majorly high in the world! That's all I know!" Shadow looked him in the eyes and threw him to the ground, he grabbed a bottle of whiskey off the ground and poured it all over Scrouge and made a small thin trail of it to the door, which had now been blown out into the alley. "So? What? Your just gonna dump this shit over me! And think I'm done, I'll be back Shadow. Don't you forget it!" Shadow then took out his pistol again, and shot the concrete where the trail of whiskey ended. The spark ignited the liquor and the flame followed the path of the whiskey. Scrouge went up in flames, he screamed in pain. Giving out glass breaking screeches that muted everything else around. His fur and quills went from a glowing green, to a burnt black.

"Fuck you! Shadow The Hedgehog!" He yelled one last time before he fell to the floor dead.

The sound of sirens filled the city as the GUN troops moved up to the bar and extinguished the flames. And Shadow long gone from the chaos that was now being caused. At his apartment, Shadow smashed the door open and ran over to a military case. He opens the metal locks and inside lies and arsenal of weaponry and battle clothing. He makes a count of everything inside, two M9 pistols, one M4A1 assault rifle with flashlight, with four flash bang grenades, and three hand grenades. He threw on his belt, and loaded the pistols into there holders, and places the grenades around his belt. Flash bangs on the left, and hand grenades on the left. Picking up the M4A1, he rubs his finger over the scratch marks. Marking his number of losses. First it was one, then two, three, four, five. All of them leading to the end of his world. And the birth of GUN's. He throws it over his shoulder and puts it on his back. Shadow breaths, looks around the apartment, takes a deep breath, and runs out the door, down the stairs, and into the streets. He jumps on a dumpster and lunges himself onto a fire escape, he reaches the top of the building. And scouts out an enemy helicopter.

"There's my ride..." he says. Now going into a full sprint, Shadow launches himself across rooftops and alley ways. He reaches a water tower and climbs up the ladder, carefully examining his timing, he waits in the darkness of the night. Careful not to be spotted by the pilots. Waiting, the copter crosses in front of the water tower, and he jumps, grabbing the skids, he shakes the helicopter.

"Now I wait to arrive in the city. Watch out GUN. I'm on to you now." And slowly the copter fades into the darkness of the horizon.

In between time and space everything is white and here Tikal meditates, letting the energy of the universe flow through her, feeling for spikes of great energy. Then she jolts forward with screaming agony. She falls down, breathing heavily. She begins to shake, and tries to stand up.

"Sonic, I need to talk to you." She announces, yet no one is around. Suddenly a blue fog from behind her appears, it begins to manipulate itself, into a form. Finally, a solid figure appears, Sonic The Hedgehog.

"Hey! I was in the middle of taking a nap!"

"Sorry Sonic, it's just that I got something I need to tell you." Sonic looks at her.

"What is it?" She looks at him, with glowing eyes.

"I found him."

"What?!"

"Shadow...he's still alive, I found him!" She said excitedly. She then closed her eyes and suddenly the world around them turned into images. "Shadow had killed a hedgehog known as Scourge. After he died I felt a great amount of energy hit me. Pure Chaos energy." She said. Sonic thought for a moment, trying to figure out what had happened.

"But didn't Eggman wipe him of his Chaos Powers before Shadow, you know..."

"He did, but somewhere in time his Chaos energy came back. It's not enough to use the powers, but at least we know there's still hope!" She sighed. "Shadow needs to find the chaos emeralds. If we can get him to go back and save all of you before you all died. Then you can all go back to your normal lives!"

Sonic knew, that if they were ever going to get their normal lives back. Then Shadow would need to get those emeralds back. "So...where do we start?" Sonic asked.

"First we got to get in contact with Shadow, wether it be dreams or if he dies."

"If he dies?"

"If Shadow dies we will be able to contact him, problem being, I don't think we all have enough energy to bring him back."

"Alright, well let's just start on figuring out how we're going to contact him." Sonic says.

Tikal turns to him, "So two hundred years and you decide to take a nap?", Tikal Laughs.

"Hey, being dead can get tiring at times..."

The night was cool. The air made a small breeze, and the sky was filled with stars. As for Shadow, he was still hanging from the skies of the helicopter, sleeping. Years of training had made him capable of sleeping in just about any postion that others would find very uncomfrotable. To Shadow, sleeping upside down allowed the brain to meditaite easier, giving him better visions of things to come. A light passed over his eye, he scrunched his face, then another, this time he opened his eyes. A light blinded him for a moment, his vision cleared up. And on the horizon, he saw the city, and standing a top it all. The GUN HQ; it glowed with it's blue windows, and bright lights, showing off all the power it had in all it's glorification. The pilots began talking inside.

"HQ this is Delta Whiskey Tango, requesting permission to land. ID code is 45214-623. Star is Pacific. Over." There was silence for a moment or two.

"Come again Whiskey Tango, please say your ID code again." The pilot repeated the code, "ID Code is 45214-623." Silence fell over again.

"Welcome back Whiskey Tango, Hanger 4B is now open for your landing." Shadow heard from the radio and pulled up his hood. They were flying over the city now, buildings shined, the technology of the future shimmered, cars were flying, and everything was more advanced than ever before. Arriving apon the HQ that stood over the city, a giant landing strip pulled out from the building, signaling the copter where to land. Shadow thought quickly, pulling himself up, he moved his way from the skies to the back of the chopper. Out of sight from the pilots and any possible gaurds. The chopper landed with a thud on the pad, then slowly it started moving back inside the base. Once inside, the doors of the copter opened, and the pilots walked out. On the other side of the hangar, units were gathered around, at attention. Shadow dropped down, onto the floor, and tip toed his way over behind oil drums. He pulled out a make shift timer gernade, and armed it for three minutes.

"This should keep them distracted long enough." He looked over the oil drums, a door opened and out came a man in a robotic suit, his hair was white, and his build was huge. Shadow's head began to hurt, for it looked like the GUN general that tried to kill him years ago. He shook the thought from his head and dropped the gernade, and ran for the open entrance of the hangar. Coming close to the edge, he peaked over the ledge. "Looks like there's only one way down." He said to himself. Suddenly the cocking of a gun, then a voice.

"Hands up." It was a hard and brute voice. It repeated, "Hands up, and turn around now. Otherwise your asking for a bullet in your head." Shadow could feel the barrel of gun touching the back of his head now. "Last chance." It said. Slowly, he pulled his hands up, and put them on the back of his head, and turned around with his face pointed to the ground. Ten guards stood around him, all armed with the M473 issued GUN guns.

"Remove your hood!" Ordered one of the gaurds. Shadow took his hood, and slowly began to pull it back, then a force sent the troops flying. The barrels had exploded, flinging them over the ledge and Shadow free of problems. Alarms began to sound, and fire sprinklers began to go off. The hangar now lay in flaming ruins, copters layed destroyed, and workers dead.

"Hmph. Humans..." Shadow said, and turned to the ledge and dived off. The world immediatly became a beam of light as he fell the hundreds of stories to the ground. He saw the ground, quickly he rolled up into a ball, and smashed down into the car. Standing a top the car, crowds of people all looked at him. Yelling with terrified shocks. Things like,

"What the hell is that thing!" and

"Get GUN down here to kill it!" Over all the yelling Shadow could make out one sound. The sound of sirens, he bolted off into the alley ways, and into the darkness of the night.

The apartment was quiet, nice white clean furniture organized into a neat fashion, a Holographic TV rested on the wall, and the kitchen was shining from the moon's beams of light. Outside, a rooftop pool surronded by a hedge fence. and the water shimmered. On the otherside of the pool, a hedge rustled and out jumped Shadow, he peaked around, making sure everything was quiet, and no one was inside the apartment. Slowly he moved up to the door, and checked the door which was halfway open. He walked over to the bedroom window, nothing, no one was sleeping or anything. Something was up, but that wasn't going to stop him from getting what he needed. He crept inside, and closed the door, everything was quiet. He moved his way from room to room, looking for a safe of any kind. The older the better. He searched the living room, kitchen, dining room, behind paintings for it to be hidden. Nothing. He went into the bedroom, and looked around, and on the bottom shelf of a book case lied a safe. Walking over to it, he realized some books had fallen from the case, even more close examination revealed that the safe had been opened.

"What the..." He whispered. A voice came from behind him,

"Looking for these?" Shadow turned around with a jolt and saw a figure dressed in jeans, and a black vest, and a bandna covering the nose down, sitting on the side table next to the bed with the folder of documents. He looked into it's eyes as it looked into his.

"Who the hell are you?" He asked. The figure stared at him, then spoke.

"The real question here is, who are you?" It was a womenly voice, soft yet rough.

"The name is Shadow, and I don't know who you are, nor do I give a damn. But I need those documents you have there."

"Oh, you mean these things, you want them, you gotta take them!" She lunged at Shadow throwing him down the ground, he threw her of and out the door of the bedroom. She threw punches wildly, eventually nailing one across his face sending him backwards. "Won't hit a girl will ya?" That made Shadow furious, he lunged himself at her, and threw her back. He grabbed her arm, and smashed her down onto the glass coffee table. "Not bad." She said rubbing her head, then reaching for a shard of the broken glass. She threw herself at him, and began to try and strike him with the shard. Shadow grabbed her arm and tossed it up where he landed a head butt on her, knocking her down and dropping the glass. "Well that's no way to treat a lady!"

"Lady, if you had any idea who I was, you would have run for the hills minutes ago." She reached for her belt, grabbed a pistol and opened fire on Shadow. He dodged the bullets and kicked the gun from her hand and grabbed both her hands with his. "Now, who the hell are you!" He grabbed the bandna, and yanked it off. Behind it, revealed the face of a chipmunk. "Sally Acorn?" He let go with a push and stared at her for a moment, and walked over to the documents that had been dropped and scattered.

"You know me?"

"Everyone who lives in the areas around GUN knows who you are." he said examing the documents. "Your name, your weapons, your skills, your gang."

"They're not a gang! I lead them to save this world from the tyranny of this world in which GUN rules! If you can't see that then your the biggest fucking idiot I've ever met."

"Sweetie, you and I fight for the same things." Then a vase smashed over the back of Shadow's head. He turned around and looked at her.

"If you ever call me 'Sweetie' again, I swear to god I will kill you myself!" she yelled.

"GUN has been trying to do that to me for the past 200 years, it hasn't worked." He went back to studying the documents. She looked at him weird.

"200 years? No one could possibly live that long."

"I'm the Ultimate Lifeform, immortal to the aging process and just about anything that can kill, made aboard the Space Colony Ark over 250 years ago. So if you knew who I was, you'd understand what my past was like."

"Your crazy." she said laughing.

"But it's true. The history may be lost but it's all true."

"Oh ya? And what makes you this 'Ultimate Lifeform?' other than being able to not age? Hm?" He sighed.

"I used to have powers, long ago, these powers could destroy the entire planet in the snap of a finger." He said.

"Dude you are weird..." Shadow looked at her, then threw himself at her.

"Get down!" They hit the floor, and bullets began flying through the windows. Shattering walls, and peircing furniture. Outside were two units of GUN soldiers, and a copter ready to open fire on the next movement.

"How the hell did they find me?" she asked.

"They followed me, now get up or be turned to nothing but a pile of gory mush!" Shadow yelled. He grabbed his gun and opened fire on the soldiers. "Cling to my back, and follow me!" They moved across the living room slowly to make sure Sally didn't get shot while Shadow took the bullets. "Fuck I hate doing this." He whispered.

"Where are we going?" She yelled trying to aim.

"To the ledge, when we get there, hold onto me, and jump!" He yelled. She nodded her head, and they moved their way across the pool area, and made it to the ledge. "Jump!" They fell over the side. Blood flowed from the bullet holes in Shadow, the fall made the drops look like gravity didn't exist.

"Shadow! Shadow!" Sally yelled. He threw her over him, getting her in a hug like postion, he made her lay tight up against his chest, he covered her head with his hand. Shadow's back smashed into a hover car, then another, he could feel each of the bones in his back snap and break, each one letting out a shocking yell. His back smashed on the ground, and he let go of his grip on Sally. "Shadow get up! We need to get out of here!" But Shadow only spit out a breath of air and blood. Through his vision, everything was going black, he could hear the troops getting closer, but he was still un able to move. "Shadow! Come on, get up!" Sally threw Shadow onto her shoulders, and began to ran. She collapsed on the street, and he rolled off her back. A car came in and skidded across the ground, not a GUN vehicle. Shots opened fire, striking down the troopers, he couldn't make out of the figures who came to their rescue. Then silence came over, from everyone other than Sally.

"Get the medical kit! Come on, stay with me Shadow! Stay with me!" And that was the last thing he heard before everything went black.

Everything was black; the world had no horizon line, nothing that showed where the sky and land met. Shadow stood there in a light that just seemed to generate out of thin air. He heard whispers and echoes of voices he knew, and people he’d fought before. They got louder as seconds passed; Shadow covered his ears but could still hear them clear as day. He struggled to stop the noise and collapsed to his knees, hands still covering his head he let out a cry of distress. “Shut up!” He jolted awake, sweating and panting. He was on an operating table now, blood covered the floor. He peered down at his chest, the areas the bullet wounds had faded away. He got off the table and walked towards the door, he opened it and peered out into the hallway, no one was around. He began to walk; his head was still throbbing from the fall, or was it the dream? He couldn’t come to a conclusion on it. What was that dream he thought, and what were those voices saying, there were so many of them he recognized but couldn’t make out the words. A shout from behind cut his thoughts off.

               “Hey you!” He turned around, a creature, was standing there. He panicked when he saw Shadow’s face, and whipped out a pistol. “Who are you and what are you doing here!” Shadow stood there and looked at him in a serious manner without speaking. “Answer me dammit!” he shot the pistol. Shadow dodged the bullet and attacked the creature, he threw him against the wall, and punched him in the stomach; making him collapse to the floor. Shadow reached around in his pockets took the ammo, picked up the pistol and walked off. The guard however was still conscious. He grabbed a walkie talkie from his belt, “A-All units, we have an intruder, he’s armed and possibly dangerous. Be on the lookout for a black hedgehog.” He collapsed again. Shadow bolted through the hallways of the complex, but everything looked the same. From hallways to doors, a unit of gaurds spotted him. They shouted, and began chasing after him, the halls began to get smaller everytime he went another direction, he was cut off by another unit. He opened fire on them as they crouched behind barrels to protect themselves, a pipe on the side of the wall burst, sending large amounts of water flying out and pushing down the gaurds. He took his chance, and began down the hallway. A gaurd lifted himself from the current and aimed at Shadow, just as he pulled the trigger a figure pushed the barrel down.

"Hold your fire!" It commanded, a gaurd stood up and asked.

"Sir, that way leads to the main area. If he gets in there, we don't know what he could do to everyone."

"Let him, he needs to see something he probably hasn't seen in a long time." Shadow was still running, finding any possible escape roots, the only way out was through a door gaurded by gaurds, armed and ready. He jumped at them all, throwing punches, and tossing them at one another. He punched open the door, and what he saw he could not believe his eyes. It was a cave thriving with life, people and creatures living together, in a normal like world. On the back sides of cliffs were homes, and town house like buildings. The outer rims were fulled with markets, and people, talking, as if the world hadn't gone to hell. He dropped the gun, and began to walk around, examining everything, the fresh smell of food, the sounds of people thriving, and the sight of childeren playing. To Shadow, it was like he had stepped into a whole new world.


"Pretty amazing isn't it?" A voice said from behind. Shadow stopped dead in his tracks, his eyes widened, and breath stopped for a moment.

"You..."

"Me?" The voice asked.

"I thought you were dead." Shadow replied.

"I just needed time off, by a few hundred years." Shadow turned around, standing before him was a creature ravaged by war, but still resembled his original look. He had a shotgun on his back, and wore a jacket. His eye's were blue, skin was black and pale,and his shell glowed a dull red.

"Mighty." Shadow whispered. The armadillo smiled back, and gave a glare.

"It's been a long time Shadow." He said.

The forest was quiet, the crickets chirpped, and the fire flies danced in the darkness. Tents lined an opening, full of beds, and tables, jeeps, and other vehicles parked on the far side of the opening, and a fire sat in the middle of it all. Where troops sat around talking of their stories of war. The laughed and drank, enjoying the night. A soldier came running over to join the group,
"He's here." They all looked over and glanced at the short figure, around his belt were two pistols, and on his back, a katana. His eyes glowed red, and his black fur blended into the darkness.
"Shadow The Hedgehog reporting in." he said. Everyone, tipped there heads and welcomed Shadow to the fire. Everyone was calm and looked into the flames of the fire, speaking not a questions till one of the soldiers spoke up.
"Sir, you sure she'll be here?" Shadow sat there, and looked at him.
"I'm sure she'll be here, we've been chasing him for far to long."

Hours went by, everyone became restless and the night had become quiet. Not even the wind rustled the leaves nor did the crickets chirp. A tree rustled in the distance, everyone grabbed their guns and began to come to alert. They switched off the safety on their guns and focused on the tree line, through the light of the moon they could see figures walking towards them. Shadow looked at them and studied them, and through his hand out to the side.
"Hold your fire!" he shouted. The figures walked out of the brush and into the opening, all of them were GUN soldiers, and out in front, the devious bat that he had worked with before, she wore the old black outfit she always had worn, and the same bright red lipstick. They came closer and she nodded to him.
"Shadow." She said, Shadow replied.
"Rouge." He nodded, "So how's it been for the past two years?"
"Same old, same old. Last time I saw you was Empire City during that terrorist bombing." Everyone began walking towards the breifing tent they followed. She sighed, "It seems as though our world everyday is beginning to crumble." Shadow knew it what it would all come down to in the end, that if there ever was a major war, she wouldn't see the end of it, for he was stuck in time himself. But didn't want to admit it.
"I just hope we can finally put an end to the Doctor's plans once and for all. It's time to throw him behind bars, and end this." They entered the tent, everyone had surronded the table already and Shadow and Rouge pushed their way to the front. The captain stepped through to the opposite side of the table,
"Gentlemen, tonight, we end this war on Doctor Eggman, for years we've lost him on all feeds. But tonight, it ends. Our scanning scouts have delivered this holographic imaging map to us." He took a small disk out of his pocket and threw it on the table in front of them, and a 3D image of Eggman's base appeared. Showing off every little detail. The base itself was shaped like a giant cylinder, outside, was a courtyard filled with warehouses and small garages. Lining the courtyard was a wall, with turrets mounted on the corners. "As you can see there are heavily mounted defenses, but, we have the upper advantage here. All your guns have been loaded with EMP bullets, which will take out just about any electric object when these bullets come in contact with it, or land near it." He took out his pistol and shot next to the hologram projector. It sparked, then went to static, finally shutting down. "Try not to shoot anything of importantance with these guys, now to the battle plan. The attack will be lead by Shadow and Rouge." Everyone peered at them and began to listen. Shadow pulled out his hologram projector and threw it down. And began to talk.
"As you can see we've studied this well, and the only way in will be the courtyard, as Captain Yawners' said, your EMP bullets will come into use on this mission. Aim and anything that aims at you first and you should be fine. We'll need to take out these turrets before breaking down the gate inside. Once inside, we'll move into the building and fight our way to the top. Here, is where the control area is." Rouge took over from there.
"Once we get into the control room we must capture and contain Eggman, you do not have permission to fire if you see him. Understood?" Everyone nodded their heads. "Any Questions?" No one answered.
"Let's move out people!" Yelled Yawners, everyone shouted 'Sir yes, sir!' and ran out the tent to their vehicles. Shadow and Rouge were the last ones to come out.
"Do you think we'll finally get him? And finally end this war?" Rouge asked Shadow who was silent for a moment then answered.
"I don't see an end to this war anytime soon..." He said.

The fire glowed in Shadow's eyes as he took a sip of water. Sally and other creatures looked at him, astonished that the corpse that laid before them earlier had come back from the dead. And had fought it's way through an entire military complex, barley struggling. Mighty sat on the other side of the fire, staring into it. Examining the flames as they danced in the darkness. Sally broke the silence.
"So...you two know each other?" They glared at each other, and Mighty spoke.
"We were, agents that worked for G.U.N nearly 200 years ago." there was an uneasyness in his voice. Shadow sat there, and listened to him. He nodded, signaling him to keep talking. "I, myself, had left G.U.N by accident nearly 10 years before the war's began. Shadow was just arriving, as I was just leaving." he paused and took a drink. "Me and him had been on several missions together, we fought our way through hundred's of robots, and anything else that stood in our way." Mighty laughed about it, "Damn those were good times." Mighty looked at Shadow, "So Shadow, what have you been doing the past 200 years?" Shadow put the tin can on the ground, and tossed the dirt around in his hand for a moment, then spoke.
"I watched everyone I know die right before my eyes. From beginning to end." Shadow dropped the dirt on the ground. Mighty looked at him with a wide eye'd expression, then bit his lip, and put his head to the ground.
"Did they die peacefully?" Shadow gave him a dark shot of seriousness.
"Only one." Shadow stared at Mighty, he could tell it had made him uncomfrontable. "But let's not discuss that now, what I want to know, is how the hell you ended up here." Mighty turned pale for a moment, then bowed his head.
"Alright. It's a long story, so get comfrontable." All the creatures sat and stared at Mighty, and Shadow focused all attention on his words.
"It was during the winter back in 2007. Me and Ray were preparing for Mission: Frozen Egg." He began.

Mighty sat there wearing his G.U.N jacket and clicking the hammer of the revolver, thinking of the night ahead. Troops walked out into cargo bay, armed with the most up to date weaponry for taking on Eggman's robots. Ray, and yellow flying squirrel, walked over to Mighty.
"So, do you think tonight will go over well." he asked. Mighty peered up, thought about it for a moment and said,
"I'm sure it will go over just like any other mission." Mighty stood up and walked over to join the group. "You guys ready for this?" The soldiers nodded their heads, they threw on backpacks and the bay door opened. Mighty took one solitary step towards the entrance, then ran, the air sucked him into the dark of the night, he did a back flip and began diving towards Earth.

"We thought, the mission would go over well, in the end I found out that I was dead wrong." He explained, then he told of the entrance into the base, how they spent the next few hours fighting their way through hundreds of robots. Then he paused, and shivered. He gulped down a sip of water as hard as he could without choking. His voice began to shake. "What I had not expected, was for what I saw on that sub-level, I still have nightmares about that place." he said.

The area was dark, nothing in sight but pitch black. They turned their flashlights on, began walking, keeping an eye out for any robots. One of the soldier's spoke up.
"Something's not right here, this place, it's to empty." And out of the darkness, there was a crash, everyone equipped their guns for heavy fire. They couldn't see anything, even with the flashlights. From behind, two red glowing dots appeared, then they vanished. Their was another loud screech, and finally a scream from one of their own. They looked up, and their was nothing around, no solider, no gun, no light. Everyone was breathing hard, and continued walking. Mighty tripped, and collapsed to the floor, at his feet, a half severed body of the soldier, dead, and blood everywhere.
"What the hell!?!" Someone yelled. Behind them, glowing eyes of blood red. They stared down the soldiers, then a screech.

"It was horrible, they were robots we had never seen before. Long skeletal bodies, with sharp claws. They moved faster than any bot I had seen." Mighty let loose a sigh, then continued. "They killed three quarters of my unit, the four of us that remained managed to get into a room. That room, is what brought me here."

They ran into the room, slammed the doors shut, and began building a barricade. "Shit man, shit!" One of the soldiers yelled. The robots banged on the door trying to rip it open. Mighty sat up against the door, holding them back. Ray ran over with a metal bar, and lodged it in the hinges. "Oh fuck, oh fuck." The soldier said again." Ray looked over his shoulder, then shined the light on it. He was stunned in bewilderment.
"Mighty." he said, Mighty looked over, and they saw it. A portal gate, it glimmered in the light, and colored stones sat around it. "It's a time portal," Ray said.
"How do you know?"
"The time stones. I thought they were destroyed years ago..." Ray was right, the times stones shined, and sparkled when the light hit them. Banging on the door continued, and the barricade cracked open a bit. Mighty ran and threw himself up against the door.
"Turn it on!" he yelled.
"Wha-What?"
"Turn it on dammit! It may be our only way out of here!" And just like that Ray ran over to the control panel and started flipping switches. Turning on the portal, where it burst open into a spectaculer blue light. The robots smashed opened the door more, a claw cut Mighty across the eye. "Go through now!" Ray showed a look of worry on his face, and ordered the troops to go through. And they were gone, leaving only Mighty in the room holding the door, he bolted for the portal with the robots coming after him. He went through. The blue light consumed his vision, and then everything was black again. He went flying to the ground, "Close the portal!" Ray ran over to the control panel, and ripped out the wires, at the same moment, and robot came through. Cut in half, screeching and clawing. One of the soldiers hopped on top of it's head, and unloaded his LMG into it. The droid collapsed to the ground, and didn't move again.

Mighty then went on explaining on how after the escaped they were greeted by the new GUN soliders, and how they were put up against the law of illegal time travel. The two soldiers that helped them escape were excuted by gun shot to the head, Mighty and Ray escaped the shooting.

"What happened to Ray?" Shadow spoke up. Mighty gulped down one last sip of water, put his head in his hands and began to tear up. "H-He, he starved to death. I thought I could get the food back to him, but he-he just fell asleep one night and never woke up again. Three days later the Freedom Fighters found me, walking with Ray's wrapped body." He sobbed for a second, "They took me back here, and I buried him." Rubbing his eyes he continued, "And for the last three years, I have had no contact with the world I left." Mighty put his head down again, "You have no idea how long and how hard it's been for me Shadow." Shadow knew the emotion Mighty had been feeling, he had been living with it for two centuries now.

A solider walked over to Sally, and whispered something in her ear, she nodded and said, "They found the warehouse, now we need to break in." Shadow looked up.
"Warehouse?" He said,
"We've been looking for it, some tips were given that G.U.N has an entire arsenal  in there, enough to last the Fighters for decades depending on the situations." Mighty said. Shadow closed his eyes, to think, shot himself off the stool and clenched his fist.
"Then what are we waiting for? I'm not letting G.U.N get the upper hand in this any longer!" he exclaimed. Mighty shot a look,
"Y-Your joining the Fighters?"
"I'm not exactly convinced, but I do want G.U.N winning any longer. Come on, we have a warehouse to clean out." Mighty and Sally smiled then ran after Shadow. For the night, was only beginning.

The moon light lit up the night sky with an erie glow. Gaurds on rooftops surrounded the warehouse. Armed with snipers, they stayed on alert, watching for any wrong movements made on the streets below.

"Shadow One, this is Shadow Leader. Got anything tonight?" Shadow Leader said on his helmet radio. There was static, then,
"Negative Shadow Leader, nothing out tonigh-Wait, I think I may have some-" Shadow Leader picked up his scope and aimed over to Shadow One's position. The scope gave off a green glow from the night vision. There was no Shadow One anymore, only a figure that perched itself on the ledge. The radio went to static again. A deeper voice this time, it sent a chill down the leader's spine.
"There can only be one Shadow." It said, the figure moved it's head down towards the street. He followed it's vision, and bellow was a creature, and with that, a bullet entered right through his skull and caused him to collapse to the ground. Gun fire opened in the area, G.U.N troop unable to see where the bullets were coming from. Shadow jumped down from the ledge right onto the jeep in which they had arrived. Sally and Mighty loaded up their weapons, and joined Shadow.
"Ready?" Mighty asked. Shadow and Sally nodded their heads and they moved their way over to the gate. Humans, and creatures gathered around, Mighty ripped the gate open, and each of them moved inside. They moved their way across the court yard and shot down all remaining G.U.N troops. Mighty ripped open the roll up door of the warehouse, and inside was rows of top of the line weaponry. Sally signalled the jeeps over to them, one by one they removed crates and boxes full of the guns. Mighty laughed with plessure when he came apon the crates of shotguns. He held up a spas shotgun that looked different than usual, he armed it with rounds, and aimed down the sights.
"What's that?" Shadow asked. Mighty looked over his shoulder and smiled.
"Watch this." He put the stock to his shoulder and pulled the trigger, the flash swallowed the warehouse, and a burst of flames rose from the barrel. The wall was covered in flames.
"Damn..." Shadow said stunned.
"I had been looking for this gun for a very long time." Mighty said shining the barrel.

An hour had gone by, and the warehouse was even half empty. Jeeps and trucks were still being loaded. Sally called to Shadow and Mighty. "Come help me with this!" She yelled trying to yank the crate open. It was nailed tight, hard for even Shadow to rip open. Slowly but surely it began to budge, and with one final pull, the crate ripped open with a massive crash, sending them all backwards. What starred at them was something that laid in his memory forever. The metal shined with it's dull bright blue, and white. The red eyes, lit up with static, and slowly; it began to move towards them. From the darkness it walked from. It looked at Shadow and Mighty.

"Target Objectives, Mighty The Armadillo, and Shadow The Hedgehog confirmed." It said.
"Run!" Shadow yelled before Metal Sonic sent him flying through shelves of unopened crates. He stood up, Metal charged at him with full force. Grabbing him, Shadow was lifted through the roof of the warehouse and began ascending over the city. Shadow began punching it with all his strength trying to destroy the circuits in it's head. Metal fought back causing struggles for Shadow in their midair fight. He managed to throw Metal back down to the ground using it's own boosters against it. The landing cratered deep into the ground. Witihin the given time, Shadow reached for his walkie talkie.
"Shadow, you there!?" Mighty said yelling over the mic.
Shadow groaned in pain, "I'm fine Mighty. Just find something to keep this bastard down."
"I don't understand, I thought you guys destroyed him a long time ago." Mighty said, rushing through the warehouse looking for something to use.
"For now, keep all your troops focused off of Metal. Last thing we need is it killing everyone."
Metal began climbing his way out of the crater. "Shit." Shadow whispered to himself. Metal stood to his fighting position. Shadow charged him, and crushed him back. Metal countered with an uppercut to Shadow's jaw. He could feel all the bones crush and crack under the pain. Again charging he dived right underneath Metal, and grabbed both legs and threw him down against the concrete. He stood up and smashed Metal's head into the pavement with crushing stomps. The dust cleared, but Metal was far from done, he grabbed Shadow by his feet, and threw him into the air. He flew up and punched Shadow's back, sending him flying farther. Coughing up blood, Shadow reached for the walkie talkie. "Mighty, I can't keep this up for much longer till I pass out."
"Don't worry Shadow, I got you. However, this may hurt a little.
"What do you mean?" Shadow peered down, a bright light followed from the warehouse up to Metal Sonic. And right behind metal, a missle headed right towards him.
"Sh-" The rocket exploded on them, sending him and Metal falling from the sky, sending Metal crashing into the ground in broken pieces. For Shadow, Mighty had caught him, and setting Shadow on the ground. Shadow limped into the ware house where Metal had crashed. A crowd of creatures were gathered around the crater where Metal had landed. Nothing remained but the ruins of a robot. When something caught Sally's eye. It shined with a blue color, and rose up out of Metal's metal corpse.
"What is that?" She asked, spectacularized by the object. Shadow's mouth dropped open, and his eyes widened.
"Something I haven't seen in nearly two centuries Sally." Shadow knew what it was, and he limped over to it, starred at it's marvelous shine, and color. He lifted his hand, and grabbed the object. The surge of energy flowed through his body. For the Chaos Emerald, had found its home.

Everything was white, the sounds of birds rang in Shadow's ears, and the smooth cool warmth of the ocean blew across his face. Slowly, his vision returned, the white had faded away and revealed rolling landscapes of green pattern grass, cliffs of brown, and beautiful waterfalls everywhere he could see. He stood stunned by the day light. For everything that seemed to have ever happened to just vanished before him. He sat down, and rubbed his shoes, trying to make sense of it all. But that's where he stopped. He noticed the shoes he wore weren't dirty any longer. They were shined clean of all dirt, and rust. He wondered to himself, but thought it couldn't have happened. He brought himself to his feet, and got into a ready position. Let himself countdown in his head, three, two, one. And with that, his shoes powered up and he began gliding himself across the green valley, jumping over cliffs, and sliding under rocks. He grinded a top rails, and shot himself out caves. The green patterns passed him by, and soon gravity was nothing to him as he went through the natural loops of the world before him. Shadow began to slipp his way through a narrow cliff when something was coming up on him from what he noticed. The figure was standing right beside him, the darkness concealed it's face, but through the cracks of the cliff above, an eye of green filled the shadow. Then streaks of blue formed around it. Finally they blasted out of the cliffs, and running right beside Shadow, was none other than Sonic, Sonic The Hedgehog. He gave Shadow a smile and wink, and pulled ahead. Shadow, stunned, thought. Smiled, and charged ahead, he flung himself around and began gliding backwards.
"Your much slower than I remember you kid!" Shadow shouted back at Sonic.
"Ya, well your not much faster either old man!" And with that, Sonic charged up to Shadow. Shadow turned himself around, and got up to pace with Sonic. They ran for miles on end, keeping with each other.

Shadow looked out upon the sunset with open eyes, the valley turned from bright green to a tan orange. Life for him changed forever after his world began to collapse and Sonic knew it.
"Pretty, isn't it Shadow?" Sonic said with a smile on his face and arms behind his heads. Shadow didn't answer, he only let the glimmer of the sunset rest on his face. "Guess, you haven't been able to see the world like this in a long time. Hard to imagine, three weeks from now, Green Hill would be covered in blood." It caught Shadow's attention. He looked down at Sonic's torsoe, the scar that cut his body remained.
"Sonic." He began, "I'm sorry I couldn't save you back then. There was just so much going on. I couldn't have saved you in time." Sonic gave a chuckle,
"Don't worry about it Shadow. After all, you did my last wish: Keeping Amy and Tails safe." He said, Sonic smiled.
"But Amy di-" Sonic cut him off, "It doesn't matter anymore Shadow, the only thing that matters now is that you listen to me." Sonic said, sonic lowered his head and rubbed the back of it. "Shadow, time is beginning to collapse."
"What do you mean?" Shadow was in full seriousness mode now, listening to everything around him.
"After your encounter with Eggman; you know, after he ripped your powers from you. It sent a shockwave that shook the order of time and space."
"Chaos Emeralds can do that?"
"Chaos Emeralds alone can't do that, they need a large source of Chaos Energy. And the only known sources of large amounts of Chaos Energy back then, was the Master Emerald, Chaos, then you." Shadow thought for a moment then spoke.
"What am I supposed to do about it?" He looked at Sonic.
"Hmph, well, your gonna need to find the remaining chaos emeralds."
"And how do you expect for me to do that? I've only found one, within the last two hundred years." Sonic smiled, then spoke with a hardy voice,
"Well you can start by getting out of here." And with that, the world around Shadow turned to white fog, the smell of the beach was replaced with the grimy smell of smoke. The rolling green hills were transformed into darkness, and the peace broke out into warfare. Soon, Shadow was looking back at the emerald, and the shouting of his allies.
"Shadow wake up!" Sally yelled, he snapped out of his gaze, holding the emerald the throwing it into his pocket. He turned around and saw G.U.N soldiers moving on their position. He grabbed Sally, and Mighty followed shooting to provide cover fire. Sally continued to fire causing Shadow's ears to ring with blaring screeches. Crates shattered, and shelves collapsed from the oncoming bullets of soldiers. They moved between the boxes trying to lose them, eventually they found a back door and escaped through there. He tossed Sally to her feet.
"What the fuck happened!" He whispered to Mighty. He explained that while he was in his stunned state after grabbing the emerald, G.U.N reinforcments showed up and started shooting them down. Him and Sally held them off for as long as they could, but were eventually pushed back. "Well, that doesn't matter now." Shadow peaked around the corner and looked up at the sky, helicopters were flying over head. Down the side was a truck full of troops, Shadow nodded his head to move towards the warehouse on the opposite side of the alley, Mighty ran, then Sally. Shadow went but was caught in the search light of the helicopter, gunshots opened fire on him, he signaled them to get inside from the side door. He whipped his gun from his houlster and shot, hitting a soldier in the leg, causing him to collapse. Shadow bolted for the doorway and slammed it shut. Inside, Sally and Mighty pushed a large crate in front of the doorway, barricading themselves in. They ran through the warehouse, looking for an exit, nothing. Only way out was the large enterance door. Then Shadow noticed something, a computer located on one of the support beams of the building. Looked ancient, to the newer technology. He stared at it, and looked to Mighty. "You still good at hacking?" Mighty nodded, "I need you to hack this control panel, look for a file coded SH-25-0091, should be under my name." There was an explosion from the far end of the warehouse. Mighty spoke,
"They're in," he grabbed a laptop out of his backpack and plugged it into the ancient wiring, and began tapping away at the keys.
"Sally!" Shadow tossed her an assault rifle, and nodded his head, she nodded back. They took their positions against crates on the opposite sides of Mighty. They could hear the footsteps of the soldiers moving their way. "There!" Bullets where live in the air, passing by their heads. Shadow opened fire on the unit, putting them down to ground, more troops advanced from Sally's position. Without hesitating she opened fire, which in return they open fire on her. Landing a bullet, in her shoulder. Shadow heard her cry of distress. He ran over to Mighty, and picked him up, putting his arm around his. Put Mighty's back to the bullets, and opened fire. Making Mighty a living riot shield.
"What the hell are you doing!" He shouted.
"Just keep hacking the damn computer Mighty, we don't have all night!" Bullets crunched on Mighty's shell, but he didn't feel a thing, finally the coding, lessened to nothing, and a window on the screen appeared.
"I've got it!" He shouted, Shadow then pulled away from the gunshots, and grabbed Sally and threw her over his shoulder. They weaved their way through the complex maze of crates, finally arriving at the crate Shadow spoke of. He lowered Mighty, and Sally, and began to rip away at the nails.
"You OK?" Mighty asked Sally who was mending her wound.
"I'm fine, just a little accident." She laughed about. A crashing noise came down, the crate was open, and on the inside, an object gleamed with excitement of the moonlight coming through the broad windows. It seemed newer than it ever had before, and Shadow smiled at it's appearance. Mighty stood up in disbelief at what he was looking at.
"You still have it...after all these years."
"I never thought I'd need it again." Shadow said, when Sally jumped into the conversation.
"What is it?" They both had forgotten that Sally was one of the future.

The soldiers searched the warehouse, they found nothing of importance that took their attention, but the sound of an engine starting up turned their heads towards it. They moved carefully, guns aimed, and sights locked. They came to a narrow passage, at the end was darkness, a light flickered on, and came rolling down at them with thunderous noise. They jumped out of the way, and smashed themselves to the ground. The motorcycle, being driven by Shadow, while Mighty and Sally used cover fire. Shadow smashed the bike through the front of the building, and into the outside world. He rammed through soldiers, and smashed through a fence, they moved off into the darkness of the night, for the fight for universe was just beginning.