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!"

"But, won't we forget everything that's happened? The time we've spent together over the past two hundred years?" He asked her.

"No, because if Shadow can go back in time it will link the future to the past, allowing you all to go and live on, and you will still all have the same memory." She told him.

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.