Shadow Generations: Harmonia in Chao

Chapters

Dark Beginning
Hang Castle
Unexpected Reunions
Aquatic Base

Dark Beginning

A large metal door slid up on its own, allowing two humans to step into the room beyond. One was a young woman with blonde hair and blue eyes that matched most of the clothes she wore, and the other was an older, bald man with a gray mustache wearing dark glasses and a white lab coat. On the chest of the lab coat was an ID tag that identified him as Professor Gerald Robotnik, and the young woman with him was his beloved granddaughter, Maria. Tragically, she was afflicted with a disease that had no known cure, and Professor Gerald was focusing all of his research on Space Colony ARK on discovering one. He slowly followed Maria into the room and made his way over to his computer console. This could be the most important breakthrough in his research, but he had to remain steadfast, knowing all too well what had led up to it.

Maria, on the other hand, could hardly contain her excitement. She was lightly giggling as she ran into the room and over to the large machine in the center of it. She stopped in front of it and gasped lightly as she looked through the glass into the tube the machine was connected to. She wasn’t excited about what the contents of the tube meant for her future; she was excited to actually meet what was inside. As her grandfather typed on his keyboard, the mist inside the tube dissipated, allowing her to clearly see it: a humanoid black and red hedgehog wearing gloves and shoes. After a few moments, the mist had vanished completely and she could easily see him asleep inside the tube.

Maria eagerly turned to her grandfather, who was checking the vital signs on his screens, and asked, “Can we wake him up now, Grandfather? Can I meet him?”

Gerald turned to her and gave her a soft smile as he replied, “I believe so, yes.” He looked back at this computer screens to make sure everything was still going as expected before saying, “It’s time to awaken the Ultimate Life-Form.” He turned to look at the tube and crossed his arms, “Welcome to the world… Shadow the Hedgehog.”

As the stasis wore off completely, the black hedgehog’s eyelids began to twitch…

Shadow’s eyes opened and then narrowed slightly as he slowly looked around the room. This was the room he’d made a detour to visit, all right. The room where he’d first been awoken and had met Maria and Professor Gerald fifty years ago. Back then, everything was bright, shiny, and had a soft glow to it. Now, the room was dark, dusty, and the light was dim, much like the rest of the ARK. He wasn’t sure himself why he’d put his mission on hold to come visit this room; he was never one for nostalgia. And yet there was something about standing in the room where he’d first met Maria that made him feel something. He wasn’t sure what it was, though.

There was a crackling sound in his right ear and he heard a familiar voice a moment later, “Shadow? This is Rouge. Do you copy?”

Shadow raised his right hand to his ear and clicked on his communicator, turning and walking out of the room into the hallway to look out one of the windows at the Earth as he answered, “Shadow here. I copy.”

Down on Earth, his bat ally Rouge was standing under a tree away from a gathering of their other allies, all of whom were setting up a picnic table for a birthday party. She looked up towards the sky as she asked, “Have you reached the ARK yet?”

Shadow nodded, “Yes, I arrived at the space colony an hour ago.”

Rouge replied, “Well, you’d better get a move on, then! The party’s going to be starting soon. Tails will be back any minute, and Sonic is bound to be right behind him. I hope you didn’t forget our agreement?” Shadow gave an annoyed grunt at that, since he knew she knew full well that that wasn’t how that conversation went.

Last night…

Shadow’s raid on one of Eggman’s bases in the desert took a bit of a turn with the sudden arrival of Omega and Rouge. After the latter caved in the head of another one of the many Egg Pawns defending the base, she said, “Evening, handsome.” She leapt off the exploding robot and landed next to him, “Didn’t expect to see you here.”

They both turned to each block an Egg Pawn that was trying to get the drop on them. After punching his away, Shadow asked, “Rouge, what are you doing here?”

Rouge answered while continuing to fend off her Egg Pawn, “Just gathering some intel for G.U.N..” She kicked the Egg Pawn away and moved to a nearby terminal, typing on it as she continued, “I convinced Omega to be my backup. What’s your story?”

While fending off another Egg Pawn, Shadow replied, “I need a spacecraft to reach the ARK!” He finished off the robot and turned to Rouge, seeing her pull a flash drive out of the terminal, “The security grid detected a perimeter breach. Something is up there and I need to investigate it.” He decided that was all she really needed to know. There was no point worrying her about the potential return of the Black Arms when he had no solid evidence to support it.

Rouge crossed her arms, “Well, you’re out of luck here. This is just a supply depot.” She suddenly let out a gasp as Shadow ran behind her and pushed her off her feet, a loud crash being heard behind them. As they looked up, they both saw an Egg Breaker robot retracting its spike ball and leaping down into the depot courtyard.

“Hold that thought,” Rouge remarked as she and Shadow stood.

“I CALL DIBS!” Omega stated as he joined them.

As the Egg Breaker sent multiple large chunks of the ground flying at Team Dark, Shadow said, “Take it out!” They split off in different directions to evade the flying rocks before beginning their attack. Omega opened fire on the Egg Breaker’s right leg, easily cutting through its armor and breaking the leg off, greatly reducing its mobility. Rouge flew up to draw its eye laser fire and spike ball shot before shooting down with a Screw Kick to remove its spike ball arm. Shadow then moved in for the kill, jumping between the rocks to gain height before shooting back down and destroying it in a big explosion.

As he stood on top of what was left of the large robot, Rouge flew down beside him and started, “Now, about this spacecraft…” Shadow glanced up at her as she went on, “I can take you to a ship, but in return, you’re going to have to PROMISE to make an appearance at Sonic’s birthday party tomorrow.” He gave an aggravated groan at that, not liking where this was going. Rouge, however, simply went from the exaggerated begging stance she was doing to her more casual stance as she said, “I’ll take that as a yes. Now then, interested in raiding a G.U.N. base?”

End flashback

Rouge spoke, “You know, I really want to see what kind of reaction you’d get from some of these goody two-shoes just for making an appearance. So, get done up there already!”

Shadow simply crossed his arms as he responded, “I already told you, there was a breach in the ARK’s security perimeter, and G.U.N. detected an unusual bio-signature around the same time the breach occurred. I’m not leaving until I find out what it is and eliminate any possible threat. Besides, you know what he’s like. You actually think he’ll be bothered if I don’t show up on time or don’t show up at all?”

Rouge smirked, “Well, you could bother him by showing up and swiping some of the food as you leave.” She heard a click and then nothing. “Shadow? …Shadow?” she questioned, but there was no response. She lowered her radio and looked at it for a moment before putting it away and walking back over to the other attendees.

On the other end, Shadow had turned off his communicator, but it wasn't because he was tired of the conversation. While Rouge was talking, he noticed something out of the corner of his vision to his left. It looked like some kind of red haze or mist at the end of the hall, coming around the corner at the junction. He took off towards it and planted his feet against the ground as he got closer, sliding around the corner. Sure enough, there was more of the stuff coming from down the corridor. “There!” he stated, sure he'd found the intruder. He shot down the corridor, following the mist even as it became thicker.

As he ran, the air around him began to distort, the mist twisting and curling in ways that it shouldn't be able to. He noticed this, but he wouldn't let it deter him. “Think this cheap illusion trick will ward me off? You can't get away from me!” he grunted. He kept running, following the mist through the corridors that he still remembered well.

Suddenly, the mist began to dissipate and become thinner. This made Shadow raise an eyebrow, especially since the corridor seemed to be stretching longer than he remembered it. His feet lifted off the ground and trailed slightly behind him as he went faster to see how much longer the corridor was, but it didn't take long for him to see a door at the end. He slowed down slightly to allow it to open and found himself in a winding corridor that seemed familiar, but its location didn't match up with his internal map of the ARK.

As he ran, he began to feel uneasy as he began to realize why this corridor was so familiar. He had run down it fifty years ago, with Maria in tow… as they were being chased… His pace began to slow. He could just about hear the sound of soldiers’ boots hitting the floor echoing off the walls, sounding closer and closer. He closed his eyes and shook his head, trying to get the echoes out of his head as he kept running, but the sound didn’t go away. Suddenly, a gunshot rang through the air and Shadow let out a gasp as his eyes shot open, his pupils dilated. A swirling red vortex opened above and ahead of him and a dark laugh rang through the air as a black and purple starfish-like creature with a single red-orange eye emerged from it. “You!” Shadow exclaimed, immediately recognizing it as the third eye of Black Doom, the leader of the alien race known as the Black Arms and who he carried the blood of. He didn’t get a chance to say or do anything else as the hallway began to twist and distort and then, seemingly, fell apart.

The floor beneath him was breaking apart into small cubes, but Shadow did his best to follow the corridor for as long as he could. When the entire corridor had fallen away, he found himself falling through a strange location. Instead of being in outer space, he was in a city that looked familiar save for two things: the sky was tinted red, and the buildings weren't just on the ground; the tops of the buildings stretched from the sides and the sky above. It was like he had fallen into some sort of dimension where everything was being mirrored.

“Where am I?” he muttered as he fell towards a section of road that was turned up like a halfpipe. His feet made contact with the road and he started running, following it. As he ran, he glanced around the twisting cityscape, looking for something that could tell him where he was.

Suddenly, Black Doom's Eye flew up alongside him and said, “We meet again, Shadow the Hedgehog.” He flew ahead down the winding road and Shadow followed him, jumping to another floating section of road to do so. “My latest creation…” Black Doom mused as his eye flew on, not looking back at the black hedgehog.

The road came to an end and Shadow had to jump and unleash a Homing Attack on some G.U.N. Beetle robots hovering past it to reach a railing, grinding on it. “This is your doing? How?!” he demanded as he did so, but Black Doom’s Eye had disappeared. He growled and continued to grind, leaping off when he reached another winding section of road. The eye suddenly appeared again with a dark laugh and he followed it, grinding on another railing when he reached it for a few seconds before it lifted up suddenly and threw him up towards a pulsating tunnel floating in the air. Inside the tunnel, he looked around and saw it was made up of buildings that were compressing and decompressing over and over again.

Black Doom’s Eye flew past him again as he exited the tunnel and he narrowed his eyes and spun around to straighten out. Black Doom laughed again, the floating eye practically bulging in its socket, and then flew away as a new building swung around for him to land on. He landed feet first, but he immediately found himself being pulled down, so he adjusted his stance in order to slide. As he was sliding, the eye flew ahead of him once more and Black Doom ominously said, “The promised time will arrive once more…” Shadow maneuvered around some spots on the building that were moving and glowing purple and jumped when he reached the end, aiming for a rooftop below him. As he was falling, Black Doom added, “You cannot deny your fate…”

Landing on the rooftop, Shadow looked up and glared at Black Doom’s Eye, which was hovering opposite him. A red forcefield surrounded the eye and five glowing red circles appeared on the roof between the two. A G.U.N. Hunter rose up out of each circle and Shadow immediately knew they weren’t friendlies. As they were raising their gun arms to aim at him, he teleported using Chaos Control, appearing in front of them and knocking them off their feet and back into Black Doom’s Eye. The forcefield surrounding the eye buckled each time it was hit and it broke after the last robot hit, leaving it exposed. Shadow teleported and struck it as well, and it dropped a talisman-like trinket that was shaped like the Black Arms’ symbol and was glowing purple.

The talisman floated over to Shadow and disappeared when it touched him. He ignored it for the time being and returned his attention to Black Doom’s Eye. “We shall meet again, Shadow,” he said as a red portal opened up above him and he flew up into it. The portal then vanished and the rooftop fell away under Shadow’s feet. He began to fall again, but the red hues and the twisted cityscape were nowhere to be seen in the hole he was falling into; instead, the sides and the bottom when he got closer were the soft blue hues and insides of the ARK.

“So, what I was tracking… was him…” Shadow murmured as he was skydiving down the hole. As he landed, he stated, “I won’t let him escape again!” He looked up and saw the door he landed in front of slide open, revealing a hallway beyond. He could see a room at the end and he felt a familiar sensation coming from it, so he ran down the hallway as fast as he could to investigate.

He slid to a stop when he entered the room and looked around as he walked forward. It was a sizable room with windows allowing one to look out into space. It was almost like the lab that he was jettisoned from fifty years ago, only there was no glass in the floor and it seemed to be emptier. He stopped a little more than halfway across the room when he noticed a contraption in front of the window across from him. It had a raised metallic flat surface with two devices, possibly laser devices, on the sides pointed down at it. And floating above the surface was what appeared to be the yellow Chaos Emerald.

Shadow gave a humph and moved forward to investigate. He stopped in front of the Chaos Emerald and grabbed it with his right hand, holding it up to look at it. “The fake Chaos Emerald Tails made to foil the Doctor’s plans…” he said, remembering Sonic showing it to him before they’d fought to determine if the blue hedgehog could reach the Eclipse Cannon in time. He reached his left hand into his quills and pulled out the real yellow Chaos Emerald. He held both close together and looked between them, saying, “Hmph. I will give him credit; even I would have a hard time distinguishing between the two just looking at them…” He put the real Chaos Emerald away and was about to put the fake back where it was when the ARK suddenly shook and a purple light began to shine through the windows. “What…?” he uttered, raising an eyebrow as he turned to get a better look.

Outside, the light became brighter, causing him to hold his left hand up in front of his face and squeeze his eyes shut. After a moment, he was able to partially open his right eye. It was difficult to see with the bright light, but it looked like there was a purple portal opening out there, with the inside of the portal being a dark purple. And something was emerging from it. He couldn’t tell what it was exactly since it was shrouded in shadow, but it appeared to be a large creature of some sort. “Are there… two now?” Shadow thought as he noticed something else behind the creature, but he couldn’t tell if he was actually seeing it or if it was the light playing tricks on him.

Suddenly, a dark purple sphere formed in front of the creature or creatures and then it burst, unleashing a wave of whatever energy was gathered within. Shadow kept his hand up, but he couldn’t keep his eye open anymore. The light was too bright…

“Tell that freak to stay away from me!”

“Abe!”

The voices were behind him, but Shadow couldn’t hear them. He was focused on the containment unit in front of him. On the floor of the unit was a black and purple pulsating blob with three horns and a single red and yellow eye staring back at him. It didn’t seem bothered by the fluid in the unit as it continued to stare him down, seeming to never need to blink. It was disgustingly fascinating the way it occasionally writhed in the unit as if it suddenly desired freedom. Or maybe it was looking at the thing it desired most…

“Shadow…?” He felt a hand on his right shoulder and suddenly Maria was crouching down in front of him. “Are you alright?” she asked.

Her worried face and words were enough to snap him out of his trance. “Maria!” He glanced away from her for a moment before replying, “I’m… fine.” He looked down and away from her, “It’s just…” He looked back at the creature in the containment unit and explained, “The Professor created me using alien DNA. The Black Arms, he called them. The same DNA as this… larva. This… ugly, heartless creature.” He pressed his forehead against the glass, “I may look like a hedgehog, but I’m really no different than this thing.”

Maria suddenly wrapped her arms around him and hugged him tightly. She pulled back to look at him and said, “That’s not true…”

Shadow could feel solid ground beneath his feet, causing him to come out of his memories. He wasn’t sure what that light had done to him, but it seemed like he had become detached from his body since his senses were coming back to him and he could sense he was standing in the same stance as when the light forced him to shut his eyes. He slowly opened his eyes and, at the first sight of his surroundings, they shot open and he looked around.

White. He was surrounded by white. Where the sky would be the white stretched seemingly without end. Lowering his gaze, he realized he must’ve been on top of a building because a city stretched out below. All the buildings and a bridge stretching out over the water at the edge of the city were completely white as well. There were many buildings that, while not as tall as the one he was on, still stretched up quite far from the ground. There was even one nearby that had what looked like a carving of a horse’s head on top of it. That made him raise an eyebrow. He seemed to be standing on top of a building that had a point that rose up since he didn’t have much space to move around.

Suddenly, the talisman that Black Doom’s Eye dropped came out of him and shot off into the distance. Shadow watched it fly away, squinting a bit as it got further away. It was hard to tell since it was going so far, but it looked like it was heading for something floating in the sky. Before he could try to get down from the building and follow it, he felt something pulling him up. He looked and saw an opening floating in the air above him, an image of the Earth and the ARK on it. He attempted to get out of its pull, but he couldn’t, and when there was a sudden pull upwards, the fake Chaos Emerald fell out of his hand. The last thing he saw before vanishing into the opening was it rolling over the edge.

When the disorientation from going through the opening wore off, Shadow found himself in space. A quick glance up and down confirmed he was outside the ARK. His view of the Earth was partially blocked by the numerous walkways floating around the underside of the colony. Fortunately, he had come out above one and he dropped down onto it. He looked around and saw that he could make it to a nearby walkway and continue to more walkways and railings from there.

With no other options readily available, he let out a “Hmph” and ran towards the walkway, hoping to find either some answers or a way back to the city and the white world. As he ran and leapt from walkway to railing to walkway, he was confronted by not only more G.U.N. robots, which were clearly not summoned, but also several Artificial Chaos when he made it inside the colony. All of them tried to stop him, but they were no match for his Homing Attack and Chaos Spear. He kept pushing forward while also keeping an eye out for Black Doom’s Eye. He couldn’t shake the feeling that he was still somewhere on board the ARK.

While running down a hallway, he felt a strange sensation similar to what he felt back during the Black Arms’ invasion of Earth when he felt the presence of the Black Arms. He looked around; half a dozen black, wispy streaks were coming up behind him, flying through the air. “What?!” he uttered before they turned and began aiming for him. He stepped and jumped from side to side to avoid them, but they soon began to swarm around him and then rushed him, causing him to groan in pain and lose his balance, causing him to land face first and slide a short distance down the hall.

As he lay on the floor, he was able to hear thudding around him and he knew he was surrounded. He knew he had to get up and fight back, but for some reason, his body wasn’t responding. Suddenly, his eyes shot open with a red glow and the black streaks swirled around him as his body seemed to react on its own without him thinking about it. He flipped straight up into a standing position and his arms began swinging, Chaos Spears shooting out of his hands with every swing, however there was something different about them. Instead of them being the usual yellow color, they were red mixed with black at the ends. He growled as he kept shooting off Chaos Spear; he could feel control coming back to him as he did, but it wasn’t enough.

After a couple of seconds, he let out a yell as he fired three Chaos Spears up at the ceiling. He let his head and shoulders drop with a grunt afterwards, finally back in control. He raised his head up and looked around; five G.U.N. Hunters were in pieces around him and there were multiple spots of damage in the walls and ceiling where his Chaos Spears had hit. He stared at a particularly sizable spot on the wall as he wondered, “What happened? I know that was Chaos Spear, but… it changed…” He heard a noise a moment later and looked up. An opening had appeared further down the hall and it was showing an image of a city where everything was white. He guessed it was the same city he’d been in and ran towards it, the opening closing once he disappeared through it.

Shadow did indeed find himself back in the city, though he was now at street level rather than back on top of the building. He also noticed that the building was regaining its color when he looked back upon hearing a whooshing noise. Quite a few buildings around it as well as the sidewalk and some of the road in front of him had regained color as well.

That didn't concern him, though; he was more intrigued by what had happened on the ARK. He looked down at his hands as he turned and walked to the left down the street away from the building, seeing black swirls and sparks of red lightning around them for a few moments. “What happened back there? I've never lost control like that… And my power… Something was different. Yet despite the loss of control, it felt… natural,” he murmured. He faced forward and saw he was approaching a three-way intersection. “Does he have something to do with it?” he wondered, thoughts of Black Doom in his mind.

When he reached the intersection, he heard a familiar voice say, “SHADOW.” He turned to his left and saw Omega standing beside the building at the corner. The robot walked over to him and said, “THAT WAS VERY CLUMSY OF YOU. WHAT WERE YOU THINKING?” Before Shadow could respond, he opened the compartment in his torso. Inside was the fake Chaos Emerald he had dropped. Omega pulled it out and held it out to him, remarking, “IT'S A GOOD THING I SAW IT FALLING. DON'T LOSE IT AGAIN, DIB-TAKER.”

Shadow looked at the emerald for a moment before taking it and saying, “It's a fake emerald. It wouldn't be a big deal if it broke.” He put it away and looked around. “Do you know where we are?” he asked.

Omega answered, “NEGATIVE. THIS METROPOLIS IS UNKNOWN TO ME, BUT ALL EVIDENCE INDICATES WE ARE IN A TIME-SPACE ANOMALY.” Shadow raised an eyebrow at this, so Omega clarified, “ACCORDING TO MY SCANNERS, THERE IS NO PASSAGE OF TIME ANYWHERE IN THIS SPACE. MY INTERNAL CLOCK DOES NOT MATCH THE TIME IN THIS CITY, WHICH I BELIEVE IS FROM A DIFFERENT DIMENSION DUE TO THE NUMBER OF EQUINES I HAVE SEEN SO FAR.”

Shadow asked, “Equines? You mean horses?”

Omega nodded, “I HAVE SEEN A NUMBER OF THEM AROUND THIS CITY, BUT NO HUMANS OR ANY OTHER SPECIES. ALL THE ONES I HAVE SEEN ARE AS WHITE AS THE BUILDINGS HERE AND THEY ARE NOT MOVING. I BELIEVE THEY ARE STILL ALIVE, BUT IT AS IF THEY ARE FROZEN IN TIME AND SPACE. THEY ARE ALSO ODDLY ATTIRED.”

Shadow growled and said, “An alternate dimension… That creature that appeared outside of the ARK must have caused this.” He turned away from Omega to look down the street.

The robot asked, “YOU ARE GOING TO LOOK FOR THIS CREATURE, AREN’T YOU?”

Shadow replied, “No. My mission has become even more critical than it already was. Black Doom is alive. I encountered him aboard the ARK. This is a golden opportunity for him: this other world has probably never seen anything like the Black Arms before, and in a space where there’s no time, there’s no telling how big an army he could amass. I must find him and destroy him before that can happen.” He looked back at Omega, “Keep gathering intel about this place in the meantime. What the world this city comes from is like, any other native species, is anyone else from our world here…” His eyes moved to look at the area that had regained color, “Any time-space portal energy signatures as well. I’d rather not waste time, but maybe restoring parts of this world will ultimately reveal where he’s hiding as well.”

Omega was silent for several moments before saying, “I WILL SEE WHAT I CAN DO.” Shadow nodded, satisfied, before looking down at his hands again.

Unbeknownst to the two, they weren’t the only ones from their world present in this space. In another part of the city, a young blonde-haired woman wearing blue clothes and an older, bald, mustachioed man wearing dark glasses and a lab coat were lying in the middle of a color-drained street. The woman was the first to start moving; she twitched a bit before raising her head up. As soon as her gaze fell on the man, she gasped and exclaimed, “Grandfather!”

Author's Note

Merry Christmas, everyone, and have a Happy New Year.

Hang Castle

Shadow slid to a stop near the front of the building he'd been directed to and walked closer. He noticed a poster near the entrance and paused to take a closer look at it. “Hinny in the Hills,” he murmured. He turned to look up at the building, which he guessed was one of those theater places that he'd heard Rouge mention before. He raised his right hand to his ear and clicked on his communicator. “Omega, are you sure this is the right location?” he asked.

The robot on the other end responded, “AFFIRMATIVE. MY SCANNERS DETECTED AN ANOMALY AT YOUR COORDINATES. YOU SHOULD SEE IT RIGHT IN FRONT OF YOU.” Shadow gave a grunt in reply and switched off his communicator. He didn't see anything, so if there was an opening like the one he'd been through earlier, it had to be inside.

He tried the door; it opened when he pushed against it, so he stepped inside. The lobby he entered was as white as the world outside, though the furniture and light fixtures stood out enough so as not to blend in with the ceiling and walls. He looked around; still no sign of the opening. As he stood there wondering if he was wasting his time, a faint sound from somewhere in the theater caught his attention. He took a moment to listen to make sure he wasn’t hearing things before he began to explore the theater. He discovered the opening floating above the stage in one of the auditoriums. As he walked towards it, he saw it was displaying a dark castle on its surface. He continued to walk towards it and leapt up into it when he reached the stage.

On the other side, Shadow landed on his feet on a stone path that was clearly a bridge given the walls on both sides. He looked back and, underneath the opening, he could see two large wooden doors that were closed. He faced forward and remarked, “Hmm… There's something familiar about this place.” He got into a running stance and said, “Well, let's see what we have here.” He took off, going to the left at the end of the bridge and running down the spiraling pathway that followed.

The feeling of familiarity remained in the back of Shadow’s mind as he continued to run. He'd run down these twisting, winding paths before, back when Rouge had awakened him from the healing pod Eggman had put him in after stopping the ARK. There were even Egg Pawns that tried to stand in his way at several points, all of them wearing witch hats and waving wooden sticks around as they tried to stop him. Shadow didn't bother stopping to entertain them, though; he shot right through them and kept going.

He eventually came to the end of the path he was on and found a gray orb floating above a stand near the edge. Remembering what it did, he touched it with his hand and wasn't surprised by the flip that followed. The orb had the power to flip the entire castle and even the sky upside-down. This revealed a new path for him to follow. As he ran and jumped across the flipped architecture, he remembered something else about this castle. The last time he'd been here, his team had encountered what seemed like ghosts at various points, but there hadn't been any to try to slow him down yet.

He eventually found another which, upon touching it, returned the orientation of the world to normal. He turned with it and landed on his feet, now in another part of the castle. He was about to take off running again, but then he paused. “Did I hear something just now?” he wondered, standing up straight and bringing his left hand up to his ear.

After a few moments, he heard it again, more clearly this time. It sounded like someone was yelling, “Leave me alone! Help, someone!”

Shadow lowered his hand. “Someone else is here?” he questioned. He looked to his left where the yelling was coming from, seeing a pair of open wooden doors. He heard another panicked shout and immediately shot towards them. The hallway beyond wasn’t long and he soon spotted several of the ghosts he’d been thinking about earlier floating close together in a circle, their jack-o-lantern-like heads tilted down towards whatever they were gathered around.

Shadow narrowed his eyes and leapt above the ghosts before spinning around in a circle, creating a Black Tornado. It pulled the ghosts up into the air, allowing him to easily strike them as he spun around, causing them to disappear. When he landed a second later, he was facing away from where the ghosts had been, so as he spun around with his right fist held back, the voice he’d heard earlier exclaimed, “N-No, wait! Please! D-Don’t hurt me!”

Shadow paused and raised an eyebrow when he saw the owner of the voice. To him, it looked like a pony and a bug had been combined together, as while it seemed to have the basic external anatomy of the former, details of the latter were more readily apparent: black, shell-like skin, insect-like wings, webbed ears, mane, and tail, and opal-blue eyes that, on first glance, looked like they had no pupils. It also had fangs sticking out of its mouth, a jagged horn on its head, and holes in its legs and one in its tail. It cowered on the floor, turning away from Shadow and closing its eyes as it held its forelegs up in front of its head.

Shadow relaxed his stance, though he continued to keep a wary eye on the creature. “What are you?” he asked.

It lowered its forelegs slightly to look at Shadow. “Wh-What?” it asked and he could tell it sounded like a male.

Shadow leaned forward a bit and pushed a little harder, “Stand up and answer my question. What are you?”

The creature quickly scrambled to stand up and look at him, still very nervous as he said, “Oh, uh… I-I’m a changeling… sir!” Shadow continued to stare at him with the same expression, so he started to say, “A changeling! I, uh… well, just watch!” A green flame suddenly appeared and rose up around him. Shadow blinked at this and then stared; instead of the insect-like creature that had been standing in front of him a moment ago, there was now a lavender unicorn with a pink streak running through its mane and tail standing in its place. The flame rose up several more times, changing his appearance to a cyan pony with wings and a rainbow mane and tail to a yellow pony with wings and a pink mane and tail to an orange pony wearing a Stetson with a blonde mane and tail before finally stopping on a pony with a coat similar to his eye color and a two-tone mane and short tail. “S-See? I can use my magic to change my appearance!” he said, his voice the same.

“Can you only turn into horses?” Shadow asked.

The changeling replied, “Um, I don’t know. I’ve never tried before.” He closed his eyes and concentrated for a moment. The green flame surrounded him again and a moment later, it was like Shadow was looking in a mirror as the changeling looked exactly like him now, even standing up on two legs. He looked even more surprised than Shadow when he opened his eyes and beheld his new form, looking it over incredulously at first before becoming more excited at what he could do. “Wow! I-I guess I can! I didn’t know I could do this! This is awesome!” he exclaimed, his voice sounding similar to Shadow’s, while using his new ‘hands’ to examine his new form.

It was a perfect transformation, but Shadow didn’t like it. It was deeply disturbing watching his body move and behave the way the changeling was in his excitement. “Turn back to normal now,” he said in no uncertain terms.

The changeling gasped and made a salute as he replied, “Yes sir!” The flame surrounded him again and a moment later, he was back to his usual changeling form, sitting on the ground still saluting and wearing an awkward smile. Shadow walked over to him and placed his hands on his shoulders. “Uh, what are you…” Before he could finish, Shadow’s Air Shoes lit up and he began sliding backwards while lifting the changeling slightly off the ground so his rear wasn’t sliding against it. “Whoa! How are you doing that?!” he exclaimed.

Shadow stopped sliding once they were outside and he set the changeling down. “Okay, you’re outside now. I would advise against staying here if you don’t want to run into any more of those things.” As he turned away, he added, “Or something that wants to do more than just scare you.”

The changeling looked back at the hallway and asked, “So, those were really ghosts?” He looked back at Shadow after a moment and saw the hedgehog was looking back over his shoulder at him. He then turned and took off again, turning left and running across the top of the castle wall as he’d originally intended. The changeling was surprised by this, but after a few moments, he started fluttering his wings, making a buzzing noise as he lifted off of the ground.

He decided to follow Shadow at a distance since he seemed to know where he was going. He watched from above as the hedgehog cut through smaller courtyards, destroyed the odd-looking robots that tried to get in his way, and at one point jumped on the robots that flew when he needed to cross from one tower to another. He thought he was far enough that Shadow wouldn't notice him, but he didn't notice his eyes glancing back in his direction at points, mainly when he was running.

It didn't take long for Shadow to reach a section of the castle with a statue of a grinning man with a mustache. Shadow didn't have any way forward here, but fortunately, there was another floating orb here, so he touched it. While it was disorienting for him, it was even more so for the changeling, partly because he hadn't experienced the flip yet. He nearly fell out of the sky due to the shift in gravity, but he managed to right himself before he fell up too far. As he was righting himself, he noticed the underside of the statue looked very different. Instead of being the man's lower body, it looked like it was instead a statue of a creature, one that looked familiar to him…

An explosion caused him to turn his attention back to Shadow. He saw a pile of scraps on the platform he was standing on, which he guessed were once robots. Shadow then used several red Chaos Spears to attack the rows of large torches leading to the statue. This caused the torches they hit to fall towards the other torch. When they were almost perfectly aligned, something happened; the changeling didn’t know what and he wasn’t close enough to hear Shadow shout “Chaos Control!”, so to him, it seemed that Shadow had teleported to the other side without using the falling torches for anything. He didn’t have time to think too much about this; he had to catch up with him.

There was an opening where the two statues met. Flying through, the changeling saw Shadow approaching another orb. Upon touching it, everything flipped right side up, but as they were both falling back to the ground, the black hedgehog spun around and unleashed three Chaos Spears in the changeling’s direction. He let out a yelp, but they flew over him instead and there was the sound of something sparking a moment later. He looked back and saw three Choppers falling behind him, all of them exploding when they hit the ground. He was speechless at this; he had no idea he was being followed.

He faced forward when he heard Shadow walking towards him, the black hedgehog stopping in front of him and asking, “Why are you following me?”

The changeling dropped his upper body in a bow of sorts, looking up as he answered, “I have no idea where I am! I was in a wasteland before, taking a nap in a cave I found, and when I woke up, I was here! I don’t know how to get back to where I was or even how to get out of this castle!”

Shadow remarked, “So, you have no idea what’s going on either.”

The changeling nodded and said, “You seem to know where you’re going, though.”

Shadow turned his head to look at the wall to his right, “Even though it’s been a while, I do remember this castle.” He then looked behind him at the large wooden doors across from them, “Especially what’s beyond those doors.”

The changeling spoke, “Please, let me come with you!” When Shadow looked back down at him, he went on, “I don’t like being alone, and I’d rather be with someone who knows their way around here. At least show me how to get out of here.”

Shadow looked down at him for a moment before saying, “Try to keep up. I won’t slow down if you fall behind.”

The changeling stood up, “O-Okay. I understand.” As Shadow turned to walk towards the doors, he asked, “Hey, what’s your name?”

Shadow paused for a few moments before saying, “I’m Shadow.” He looked back over his shoulder, “Shadow the Hedgehog.”

The changeling smiled, “That’s a cool name. My name’s Thorax.” Shadow looked at him for a moment before facing forward and shooting towards the doors, striking them with a series of punches and kicks for a second before giving one final kick and sending the doors flying off of their hinges. Thorax approached him and looked at him curiously.

Shadow looked at him, “They were locked, and we need to go through here to get out.” Thorax gave a quick nod and started fluttering his wings again, flying after Shadow as he ran inside.

Following a short run down the entrance hallway, they found themselves in the foyer, a sizable room with two sets of stairs in the back going up to the second floor. There was also an Egg Hammer robot standing between them and the stairs. Thorax’s eyes widened at the size of the robot and backed up close to the doors while Shadow nodded and shot forward, running around the robot as it tried to hit him with its hammer. It soon spun around in a circle for several seconds and was off-balance afterwards, allowing Shadow to use a Homing Attack on its head and knock it onto its back, leaving it defenseless. While he was still in the air, he unleashed five Chaos Spears at its head, destroying it. He then landed and motioned to Thorax to follow, the changeling calming down and flying behind him as he made his way around and up the stairs on the right.

At the top, they passed through another set of doors to a short hallway with a set of stairs, which led to a circular room with another orb switch and a set of doors that weren’t connected to anything and simply sat atop a raised circular platform in the center of the room. When Shadow touched the orb, Thorax expected the castle to flip again, but it didn’t. Instead, when his vision cleared, the doors were open with a hallway they were now connected to beyond them. There were also half a dozen Egg Pawns dropping into the room around them. Thorax managed to muster up the nerve to attack one of them with his magic, but all it did was stun the robot a little bit. It was quickly taken out by Shadow along with the rest of them and they headed into the new hallway afterwards.

They continued on through the strange castle for a little while, using more switches to open the way deeper into the castle and fighting off robots and ghosts that appeared to try and ambush them. At one point, they entered a cavern under the castle where they had to ride a trolley along a track in order to get to another part of the cave where Shadow had to grind on another track that had no trolley. Afterwards, they reached the end of the cavern and ascended back into the castle proper.

As they were passing through a few winding hallways, Thorax was flying behind Shadow in his slipstream when he said, “You know, those ghosts earlier had me scared, but even with them, this castle isn’t so bad.”

Shadow didn’t appear to show any interest, though he did remark, “Is that so?”

Thorax replied, “Yeah, When I first woke up and saw this place, I was afraid I was going to run into my hive. I’ve heard rumors that, after what happened in Canterlot, Chrysalis set up a new hive in a castle like this.”

Shadow and Thorax came to a stop so Shadow could pull a switch next to the doors they had stopped in front of. While he was pulling the switch back, he asked, “Who’s Chrysalis?”

The doors swung open a moment later and Thorax answered, “Our Queen.”

The room beyond the doors was circular with what looked like a well in the center. As they walked through the doors, Shadow glanced at Thorax and asked, “You don’t want to go back to her?”

Thorax replied, “Not really. I’m not sure I want to see anyone from my hive if they’re still loyal to her, not even my brother. Canterlot gave me a lot to think about.”

Shadow came to a stop and turned to face him completely. “Canterlot is a place, I take it. What happened there?” he asked.

Thorax smiled and was about to answer, but then he noticed something behind Shadow that concerned him. “Um, is that part of the weird things that happen in this castle too?” he questioned.

Shadow narrowed his eyes, “Are you trying to dodge the question?”

Thorax exclaimed, “No! I…” He pointed with his right hoof, “Just look!” Shadow stared at him a moment longer before turning his head to the side to glance behind him. He immediately saw what Thorax was talking about and it made him turn around fully. Black and red mist was swirling around the well, and after a few moments, five dark purple rays of light shot out of the opening and went around in a circle before fading.

“That is not normal,” Shadow conceded. Thorax let out a cry a moment later and Shadow turned to find him being lifted off the ground by four black and purple tentacles wrapped around his legs. A fifth one slithered down to wrap around his muzzle, silencing him as Shadow glared up at the third eye of Black Doom. “You again. This is between you and me! Release him!” he demanded. The eye responded by becoming twisted and distorted followed by it emitting a red light that sent Thorax falling into the hole that the well had been over, the well itself now separated into pieces that were floating around the room. “Thorax!” Shadow exclaimed, not even hesitating to leap in after him.

He could see Thorax ahead of him as he fell into the hole, the changeling looking back up at him with a terrified expression. Shadow spun around and straightened out to fall faster, but the hole went much deeper than he remembered it being, and despite him falling faster, Thorax was getting further and further away from him. Suddenly, the water began to fade away and the walls broke into pieces just like the well had, a bright blue morning sky replacing it. Looking back down, he saw Thorax was trying to slow his descent with his wings as well as a wasteland with numerous ancient structures in a canyon below.

As he continued to fall, he heard Black Doom say from somewhere around him, “Find me, Shadow. And quickly.”

Shadow gritted his teeth. “Why should I?” he asked.

“Can you afford not to? Does that speck of life not matter to you?” Black Doom questioned.

Shadow focused his gaze back on Thorax. “Hmph. Fine. I’ll find you. I’m getting answers from you one way or another.” He began to catch up as the changeling rapidly flapped his wings.

Black Doom laughed and said, “Very good, Shadow. You don’t have long to find me.”

Shadow managed to catch up with Thorax and grabbed him, flipping around so he was holding the changeling above himself. Looking back down, he saw they would hit the ground soon, so he adjusted himself and put his Air Shoes on full blast. Thorax was panicking and squirming in his grip, but he focused on the ground below. They weren’t going to slow down enough for a soft landing, and he didn’t really feel like testing out how strong the changeling’s skin was, so he switched to a different plan. When they were close enough, he threw Thorax up and went into a Spin Dash, launching himself towards a stone arch. He uncurled as he approached it and planted his feet against it. He felt the force of the impact, but he pushed through it and pushed himself off the stone, aiming for a nearby column to jump off of towards the ground, where he did a somersault and came to a stop by pressing his feet against the wall he slid up against.

He looked up and saw that Thorax using his wings to lower himself down, landing gently on his hooves. He turned to Shadow, the black hedgehog getting up as he started, “Shadow, that… what…”

Shadow said, “Save it. He shouldn’t have forced you here. This is a cheap tactic.”

Thorax blinked and asked, “So… you know this place too?”

Shadow looked around as he said, “The actual location before, yes, but that’s not where we are. This is some twisted illusion he created for me. And he said something’s about to happen.” He looked down towards the ground, “What did he mean by ‘you don’t have long’?”

Before Thorax could say anything, they both noticed out of the corner of their visions a green light suddenly shining and they turned to look. There was a shaft of green light coming from inside several of the ruins further up ahead. “What’s making that light?” Thorax asked. Shadow didn’t say anything; he had already started to form an idea of what was going on, and the light only confirmed it. He thought he could feel rumbling and looked down at the ground again. There were some loose bits of rock lightly shaking nearby, the rumbling and shaking becoming a little more noticeable a second later.

Shadow turned to Thorax, “Are you able to fly above these ruins?”

Thorax looked back at him, confused. “What?” he asked.

Shadow stepped closer to him and demanded, “Well, can you?! Show me!”

Thorax stepped back, intimidated, but started flapping his wings. He lifted off the ground after a moment and he flew around a bit, showing he was able to fly higher as well. “H-Here, you see? I’m already this high, and I think I can fly even higher!” he exclaimed.

“Good. Then keep going up and watch out! These ruins are about to rise up into the sky!” Shadow called before he took off running down the path in front of him.

Thorax turned to follow him with his eyes, staring blankly at his words. “What?!” He noticed the entire ruin was shaking after a moment, some smaller bits already starting to lift up into the air. He gasped, realizing Shadow hadn’t been kidding, and started flying over the ruins, trying to track the hedgehog’s path while watching for loose bits rising up.

Shadow, meanwhile, continued to run through the ruins as they shifted and twisted due to Black Doom’s trickery. “I have to keep moving!” he thought after jumping to the next ruin, the one he’d just gotten off of starting to audibly tear out of the ground. He occasionally glanced back to keep tabs on Thorax, but he could tell the changeling had gotten the message. They had to keep moving; he didn't want to think about what could be below the ruins in this recreation.

Shadow soon entered the first ruin with a green light. As he expected, it was coming from one of the jewels that needed to be activated in order for the ruins to ascend. It was glowing and there were four spinning crosses that looked like Black Doom’s Eye floating around it, protecting it. Shadow looked at the jewel for a moment before moving on. There was no guarantee that, in this twisted world, destroying the jewel would do anything to stop the ruins from rising.

More G.U.N. Beetles were summoned by Black Doom that allowed Shadow to cross the longer gaps between ruins, but that wasn’t the only thing he did. Between the second and third ruins, the gravity suddenly flipped on him, sending him off to his left. There were smaller ruins there that he was able to land on and keep running, but the flip affected Thorax as well, the changeling going from flying high to quickly losing altitude when he reached the same spot. Fortunately, Shadow saw him coming down and was able to use a larger piece that was rising up to jump up and grab him before he made a crash landing or worse.

There wasn’t something for Shadow to aim for afterwards, but fortunately, gravity returned to normal and he was able to land on the third ruin. Unfortunately, it was already rumbling strongly when they landed, which indicated it was almost ready to rise up. He set Thorax down and told him, “Get back up there!” before he took off running again. The changeling looked after him for a moment before starting to flap his wings again.

Despite his speed, the next ruin began to rise up out of the ground before Shadow could jump to it. After taking out some G.U.N. Beetles, he shot forward and held his hands out, trying to grab onto something, but to no avail. He started to fall into the black below, but suddenly, he heard a buzzing noise and felt something grab him under his arms. He looked back and saw it was Thorax, the changeling holding onto him while trying to fly up. He looked down at Shadow and spoke, “Do you need a lift? …I might need one too.” Shadow gave him a curt nod and ignited his Air Shoes. Almost immediately, Thorax was able to gain altitude and he flew up towards the ruins in the sky.

After a minute or two, they caught up and were flying through the blue skies. Thorax was feeling pretty good with the change in their surroundings, the blue making him feel calm again. “This is nice, isn't it?” he asked, but Shadow couldn't care less, his eyes looking over the ruins for Black Doom’s Eye.

“Where is he?” he grunted. When Thorax asked who he was talking about, he said, “That eye that grabbed you! We have to find it or we'll be stuck here…” He trailed off when he saw the Eye flying towards the last ruin. “There! After him!”

Thorax saw what he was looking at, but he got worried when he saw more G.U.N. Beetles appearing out of thin air along its flight path, all of them turning to look up at them. “It looks like he’s called some friends to protect him. We should…” He was cut off when Shadow raised his feet up between his hind legs and ignited his Air Shoes again, causing them to descend.

Thorax tried to pull up, but the force from Shadow’s shoes was stronger than his wing power. The black hedgehog gave him a momentary glance back over his shoulder at his struggling, but he had no trouble maintaining their downward trajectory. He could bank left or right by shifting his legs, and he casually unleashed Chaos Spears to knock out the robots in their path.

It only took a minute for them to breach the line of robots and catch up to Black Doom’s Eye. When they were close enough, Shadow flipped himself off of Thorax's forelegs and shot towards the eye, striking it with his left foot. He pushed it backwards for a second before the eye pushed him up and back, another talisman getting knocked out of him that Shadow grabbed with his left hand, and said, “Well done, Shadow.” A red portal opened behind him and he flew into it while saying, “But it's still not enough.”

After he disappeared, the sky and the ruins began to fade away, everything seeming to ripple like water around them, and they began to fall. While Thorax looked around worriedly as everything disappeared, Shadow was more focused on Black Doom’s words. “‘Not enough’...? What did he mean by that?” he wondered while looking down at the talisman. He glanced up and noticed the blue sky had given way to a black void, though it looked like they were falling towards a floating platform. Shadow managed to land on his feet while Thorax barely managed to slow down before crashing onto it, though he still landed awkwardly.

Thorax looked around frantically, seeing only black and rippling around them. “Where are we?! Are we trapped here?!” he cried.

Shadow looked over at him and said, “Calm down.” When Thorax looked at him, he pointed, “That should get us out of here.” Thorax looked and saw there was one of the floating orb switches on the platform.

“Oh. How did I miss that?” he asked. Shadow walked over and placed his hand on the orb. When Thorax's vision cleared, he saw they were no longer surrounded by blackness; instead, there was a bright blue sky above them and they were standing on a bridge over a moat on what seemed to be the roof of the castle. “Wow! Is this the same castle? It's so different now!” he said.

“That's right,” Shadow nodded. He looked towards the end of the bridge and saw an opening just above it, the white city on its surface. He turned to Thorax and pointed, “There's our exit. Come on.”

Thorax looked at him for a moment before nodding. As he flew behind him, he thought, “I’ve felt so many different emotions from him already… I don’t understand. Is this how he shows… friendship?”

Author's Note

Back so soon? Must be an after-Christmas miracle!

Not sure there's much to say here. The only thing worth noting is that, yes, I did replace the Radical Highway segment with a different level. I feel like that's one of the small parts of "Shadow Generations" that disappointed me: the fact that every time Black Doom appeared, he would send Shadow to Radical Highway, especially since it was the SA2 level in the 3DS version.

The fact that there were no "Shadow the Hedgehog" stages in the game also bugged me. That factored into changing the Black Doom section as well since I felt it would be a chance to touch on some of the stages from Shadow's own game. More stages will probably be used for these segments in future chapters. I'm not saying that Radical Highway won't make another appearance or that's the only time we'll see "Shadow the Hedgehog" stages, but I feel that might be more interesting.

Okay, I think that's about it. If you've read this far, thank you!

Unexpected Reunions

Thorax flew out of the opening and looked around, landing next to Shadow as his mouth fell open. He was stunned; he'd never seen so much white in one place before. He looked up at the endless white void where the sky would be and asked, “Where are we?”

Shadow had been looking down at the talisman again when the changeling spoke up. He glanced over at him and remarked, “I was hoping you could tell me.”

Thorax looked at him and spoke, “Me? Well, uh, I guess if I saw something I recognized…” They heard a whooshing sound behind them and they looked to see the theater and some of the surrounding area regaining color. “Wow! How did that happen?” Thorax asked.

Shadow turned to him and explained, “It seems there are openings around this city that lead to locations in my world.” He looked at the theater again, “I've only been in one other such opening, but the same thing happened when I returned here as well. Somehow, going through them restores color to this world.”

Thorax looked back at him and said, “Okay. That's kind of strange, but I guess if it happened already…” They both heard a noise echoing off the walls of the building and turned to look down the street. Omega was rocketing down the street towards them. Thorax gasped and leapt behind Shadow, exclaiming, “What's that?!”

Shadow looked down at him, “Calm down. That's Omega. He's with me.” He turned and stepped off the curb into the street, waiting for Omega to slow down. Thorax followed, though he continued to peek out from behind him at the bulky robot.

Omega lowered his feet to the ground as he cut off his boosters, his footsteps thudding loudly as he came to a stop in front of Shadow. “SHADOW,” he started, but then he noticed Thorax. He pointed with his right hand, “WHAT IS THAT THING?”

Shadow looked back at the changeling as he answered, “That’s Thorax. He’s a changeling, and as far as I can tell, those holes in his legs are normal.” He looked back at Omega, staring at him for a moment before adding, “And I don’t know about the rest of his hive, but he’s off-limits. You may not maim him.”

Thorax stared at him, “Maim?!”

Shadow glanced back, “That’s one of his favorite words. ‘Destroy’ and ‘destruction’ are a few others.” He looked at Omega, “Do you have new information?”

Omega nodded, “INDEED. IT SEEMS THERE WERE SOME EQUINES IN THAT FIRST BUILDING YOU RESTORED. MOSTLY THEY WERE SCREAMING OVER NOTHING, BUT I DID HEAR A NAME. IT SEEMS THIS CITY IS CALLED ‘MANEHATTAN’.”

Thorax spoke, “Manehattan? We're in Manehattan?”

Shadow looked back at him, “You know it?”

Thorax replied, “Some of the changelings in my hive talked about this place. I remember them saying it would be an easy place for a changeling to blend in with the ponies that live here, but it wouldn't be a great place for a lone changeling to live. I guess it would be difficult to stay fed here? I don't know.” He looked off to the side, “If we just changed some things, I wonder if that would still be true.”

Shadow eyed him for a moment before turning back to Omega and asking, “Anything else?”

The robot answered, “MY SCANNERS HAVE DETECTED SONIC’S PRESENCE IN THIS WORLD.” He turned and pointed in the direction of the bridge Shadow had seen earlier, “HIS SIGNAL IS COMING FROM WHAT APPEARS TO BE A SMALL TOWN ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE BRIDGE. IT WOULD APPEAR HE IS FOLLOWING A SIMILAR PATH AS YOU IN ATTEMPTING TO RESTORE THIS WORLD, THOUGH LIKELY NOT FOR THE SAME REASON AS YOU.”

Shadow replied, “Hmph. That's fine. If he got dragged here by that creature, then I'm sure he's focused on defeating it, which means I can focus on finding Black Doom in the meantime.” As if on cue, the talisman in his hand began to shake. He looked down at it for a moment before looking back up at Omega. “Omega, I need you to track this,” he said while holding the talisman up towards the robot.

“WHAT AM I, A CANINE?” Omega asked.

Shadow rolled his eyes and explained, “Black Doom’s Eye dropped this. The last one I got from him flew off somewhere, and it looks like this one is going to do the same. If you can follow its signature, it should lead to his location.”

Omega focused on the talisman and Shadow and Thorax heard low beeping sounds coming from him for a few seconds. He stood up straight afterwards and said, “OBJECT’S ENERGY SIGNATURE RECORDED. TRACKING WILL BEGIN AS SOON AS YOU RELEASE IT.” Shadow let go of the talisman and it immediately shot up into the air and flew off behind the theater once it was above the buildings. Omega then said, “IN THE MEANTIME, I HAVE DETECTED ANOTHER TEMPORAL ANOMALY. THIS ONE IS DIFFERENT FROM THE PREVIOUS TWO.” He turned to his left, “FOLLOW THIS STREET. YOU WILL NOT BE ABLE TO SEE THE OPENING. SCANS INDICATE YOU MUST BE GOING FAST IN ORDER TO ENTER IT.”

Shadow replied, “Well, that won’t be difficult. I’ll investigate.” He turned and started to walk to the middle of the road.

Thorax spoke up, causing him to stop, “Hey, wait! What about me?”

Shadow looked back at him, “You said you wanted me to show how to get out of that castle. I did. There’s no reason for you to stick around, is there?”

Thorax replied, “Well, I didn’t know Equestria was stuck in this… white space! I don’t think I can even get anywhere near back to where I was before with everything like this! What am I supposed to do?”

Shadow answered, “That’s up to you. If you don’t have any ideas, maybe you can look around the city and see if what your hive told you is true. Or maybe you can keep Omega company.”

Thorax looked up at Omega and the robot said, “I AM VERY GOOD COMPANY. WE CAN TALK ABOUT YOUR HOLES AND HOW I ENJOY PUTTING HOLES IN OTHER THINGS. AND THEN WE CAN TALK ABOUT THE BEST WAYS TO CAUSE DESTRUCTION.”

Thorax stared up at Omega for a moment, his face turning pale at his words. He shot over to Shadow and wrapped his forelegs around the hedgehog’s legs, the rest of his body lying on the street. “Please, let me come with you, Shadow! I prefer your company! And I’ll do better so I can help you! Please!” he cried.

Shadow looked down at him for a moment before saying, “I’m still not slowing down for you.”

Thorax replied, “That’s okay! I know how to keep up with you now! I won’t fall behind!”

After a few moments, Shadow said, “Well, this one time, I’ll let you hold on. Might want to hold on elsewhere, though.” Thorax got what he was getting at and let go of his legs. He stood up and wrapped his forelegs around his torso, Shadow moving to the middle of the street afterwards.

He got into a running stance and Thorax briefly noticed the black swirls appear around his hands as he got ready. He then had to focus on holding on as Shadow shot down the street, his feet lifting off the street after they passed the first two blocks, an orange aura forming in front of him. They started to notice the air around them undulating as they went, an image slowly appearing and coming into focus in front of them. Shadow kept going as fast as he could even though they were running out of road, the water coming into view beyond the image of a city with a red sky that they were seeing. Just as they were about to go over, they both heard a boom and a shattering sound and they suddenly found themselves in the city they saw, falling down between an open spot between four large buildings.

Thorax started flapping his wings and Shadow brought his shoes down and ignited them to slow their descent more, their shared efforts causing them to soon to a stop, hovering in midair. They saw a way out nearby and Thorax flew through it. They both looked over the flames and rubble inside the building they flew through, Thorax wincing and looking away when he noticed splotches of red during the short flight through while Shadow seemed unfazed by it. They saw a road down below when they came out the other side and flew down towards it.

After they landed, they looked around at the damaged buildings and burning rubble. “What happened here? Some sort of invasion?” He lowered his head slightly, “Is this what Canterlot could’ve looked like if Chrysalis’ invasion was successful?” He looked up after a moment and turned to look at Shadow, only to find he was gone. He looked around; the only ways to go were back up the way they just came or continue down the road. He figured the latter was the more likely option, so he flapped his wings and flew up above the road as he looked for Shadow. It only took him a minute to spot the hedgehog walking down a raised-up section of road while looking around. He flew down and landed behind him; as he trotted after him, he asked, “Hey Shadow, what gives? Why’d you disappear without a word?”

Shadow didn’t stop looking around, but he responded to the changeling’s question, “Something’s not right here. This is Westopolis, but I don’t see any Black Arms around. Where are they?”

Thorax asked, “Black Arms? What are they?”

Shadow grunted, “Aliens. Invaders. This wasn't the only place that was targeted by their last invasion.”

Thorax mused, “Oh, so that's why you…” He glanced around, “We can't be the only ones here, can we? There has to be…” He paused when he caught sight of something by an overturned bus nearby and turned to look. “Who's that?” he asked.

Shadow turned his head to glance back at Thorax, but then he saw who he was looking at and he paused. It was a bipedal robot that was mostly tan in color with light brown hands. The arms and legs were light brown as well and there were spots of orange as well, including the fin that went up between its blue eyes. There was a raised tan spot on the fin that he knew was a third eye, but it wasn't open at the moment. He turned around completely and asked, “Emerl?”

Thorax could feel a whirlwind of emotions coming from Shadow as soon as he saw the robot, and it stunned him for a moment. He turned to the hedgehog and asked, “Is he your friend too?”

Shadow started to say, “He…” before cutting himself off. He walked over to the robot and asked, “Emerl, is it really you?” He received no response, so he spoke, more normally than before, “Emerl, it's me, Shadow. Do you remember me?” Still the robot said nothing.

“He's not giving off any emotions, but I couldn't feel anything from Omega either. Maybe I just can't sense anything from robots?” Thorax wondered.

Shadow ignored his words, his shock giving way to irritation. He needed to know if this was really Emerl, and he remembered something that might confirm it. “Gizoid, I command you, bring hope to humanity!” he said.

That seemed to have an effect as, after a moment, Emerl began to tremble. Shadow and Thorax stared at him as his trembling became stronger. Suddenly, his blue eyes changed to dark red and his third eye opened, revealing it was also dark red. He then spoke in Black Doom’s voice, “It is useless for you to oppose me. Give in, Shadow.” Emerl then moved, crouching down and then making a massive jump over the two, landing near the other end of the street and turning to look back at them.

Shadow stared at Emerl in surprise for a moment before he narrowed his eyes. “Give him back!” he growled before he shot forward, Emerl turning and making another massive leap away. Thorax hesitated for a moment, surprised by the sudden surge of anger he felt from Shadow, before flying to catch up with him.

Shadow followed Emerl down the street, which ended with a steep drop below ground. There were two tall buildings close together on the sides of the drop, so while Emerl leapt all the way over the hole to a smaller building on the other side, Shadow jumped towards the building on the left and ran along the side of it, jumping to the other building to maintain his momentum. When he got to the end, he used Chaos Control to cover the rest of the distance, punching Emerl in the face as time returned to normal. He reeled from the hit, but quickly recovered and leapt away again.

As Shadow jumped up to the raised part of the rooftop, he finally encountered resistance, but it wasn't what he was expecting. Instead of Black Arms dropping out of the sky, he instead found several Gizoids dropping to block his path. They looked exactly like Emerl, complete with blue eyes instead of red eyes, but after a moment, they each drew a glowing blue blade out of their right hands.

Thorax flew up behind him after a few moments and, upon seeing the Gizoids, asked, “Hey, are they your friends too?”

Shadow answered, “No. I didn't know there were more active Gizoids out there somewhere.” Before the changeling could ask, one of the Gizoids lunged towards Shadow, thrusting its blade. The black hedgehog used his right hand to push Thorax back and then moved to the side to avoid the thrust. He then dropped down and spun around in a kick, knocking it off its feet and then stopping and kicking it in the chest when he spun around again. This prompted the other Gizoids to move to attack him.

Thorax continued to flap his wings as he came to a stop a good distance away and watched Shadow engage the Gizoids. As he watched, a strange sound above and behind him caught his attention. It sounded like the sound his wings were making, but it had a metallic quality to it. He turned his head to look and his eyes widened; there were two more Gizoids swooping down towards him, but they had wings like his on their backs. He turned and flew towards Shadow while crying out, “Shadow, look out!’

Shadow leapt back to avoid the blade of one of the Gizoids and glanced back to see what Thorax was crying about. He quickly pieced together what had happened and turned back to the Gizoids in front of him and tapped into the new powers that Black Doom had awakened within him as he unleashed a red Chaos Spear at each of them, sending them flying backwards into a wall. He then jumped up and turned to do the same to the Gizoids pursuing Thorax, knocking them out of the air. The changeling had reached him by the time he landed and he said, “I need to catch up with Emerl! Get a move on!” He then turned and shot off, wanting to get away from the Gizoids before they recovered.

Thorax was able to get into Shadow’s slipstream and catch up with him after a couple of seconds as he was dropping down to another section of road. He was able to get close enough to be within talking range as Shadow started running again and he asked, “They fly too?!”

Shadow grunted, “With enough time, a Gizoid can copy nearly any ability it witnesses!” Hearing this, Thorax realized they had been watching him and that’s why their wings looked almost exactly like his.

They turned and went down a slope. As they reached a part where it became flat for a moment, Emerl suddenly came shooting out from their right, slamming into Shadow and pushing up against a building that had small fires burning around it. The sudden attack threw Thorax off and he flipped over and flailed in midair, landing on the road and nearly sliding off the flat section down the next part of the slope. Thankfully, he slid to a stop before he went too far and turned to look at Shadow after a moment. The black hedgehog was currently engaged in a hand-to-hand fight with Emerl, their blows and movements going so fast he had no chance of keeping up with either of them.

After a minute, Shadow landed a solid punch on Emerl’s face, but instead of the robot reeling back, the air around it cracked and shattered like glass, Emerl vanishing into thin air afterwards. Shadow relaxed his stance, looking down at the ground as he realized what was going on. “It’s not him. This is all Black Doom’s doing,” he realized. He looked up a moment later and saw a large Gizoid with a big wheel instead of legs and a polearm had appeared and was rolling towards them.

Shadow grunted and ran towards it, firing a Chaos Spear at it before jumping at it with a Homing Attack. The Chaos Spear did nothing to it, though, and it easily knocked him away with its polearm before his attack could connect. He slid back to the curb behind him upon landing, but before he could attempt to attack again, he heard a sound to his right and turned to look. The two winged Gizoids from earlier were flying down towards them, and they had been joined by more Gizoids, some of them sporting wings as well. He growled; there were too many of them to deal with and protect Thorax at the same time, so he turned, grabbed the changeling, and shot off down the street.

Thorax was surprised by Shadow’s actions, but decided upon seeing the Gizoid horde that it was better not to struggle and simply let himself be carried. As he was looking back over Shadow’s shoulder, he could see just how big and menacing it was as it pursued them. “I bet this is what it was like for Twilight Sparkle and her friends when they were trying to run,” he thought to himself, noticing another one of the large Gizoids pass by out of the corner of his vision as Shadow maneuvered around on a broken section of street.

Not long after, Shadow leapt onto what was once part of an overpass and, after a few seconds of running down it, he let out a grunt, causing Thorax to turn to look. He’d found the fake Emerl again, the red-eyed Gizoid hovering above the ground ahead of them. He shot away suddenly and came to a stop in the middle of a cluster of buildings ahead of the overpass. Shadow kept going and leapt after him, getting above him and kicking him downwards. He then let go of Thorax, the changeling quickly fluttering his wings after he was thrown up, and skydived down after him. He proceeded to deliver another swift series of punches and kicks before knocking him away. The fake Emerl vanished after a few seconds, but this time, a new opening appeared behind where he had disappeared. Shadow continued falling into it and Thorax flew down after him, the opening closing after they were both through.

Shadow soon saw the end of the space between the portals coming up and could see what looked like solid ground on the other side, so he flipped himself over and landed safely on his feet. He stood up and glanced around as Thorax exited and landed next to him, the changeling seeing the pieces of machinery, the orange-yellow liquid in the middle of and around the circular floor they were standing on, and the shrine across from them in the back of the room. Thorax had no idea what he was looking at, but Shadow almost immediately knew where they were. “The Eclipse Cannon’s core…” he uttered.

Thorax turned to him, “The… what?” Before Shadow could answer, he noticed the machinery hanging above the shrine started pulsing, almost like a heartbeat.

Suddenly, they heard a voice say, “All of you ungrateful humans who took everything away from me will feel my loss and despair! All of you-” There was a scratching sound that cut off the voice for a moment and when they heard it again, it continued, “-everything away from me will feel my loss and despair!”

As the voice repeated itself again, Thorax asked, “What’s going on?! Who’s saying that?”

Shadow noticed a cyan aura come from the machinery followed by an orange orb forming and floating up in the middle of the floor. “Get ready!” he said as an orange light began to shine inside it and something inside caused it to get bigger.

After a few moments, the orange light in the orb began to switch to cyan and back. After several switches, it remained cyan and the orb burst, a massive creature appearing out of thin air and dropping down. The impact from its landing pushed them back and sprayed drops of the liquid on them. They looked up at it; it was a giant lizard with two legs, a big glowing machine on its back, and bits of machinery replacing parts of its anatomy. Shadow knew it was the Biolizard, the prototype of the Ultimate Life Form. It looked down at them and let out a loud roar at them.

“Aaaaaahhhhh!” Thorax screamed as he looked up at it. He had already been scared when it had appeared; now he was terrified and panicking.

Shadow picked up on this and placed his left hand on Thorax's chest, pushing him back as he ordered, “Stay back! I'll handle this!” He then threw a Chaos Spear at the Biolizard’s head, catching its attention. It lunged its head at him and he leapt to the right while Thorax flew further back. Shadow turned back to it and said, “You tortured soul… I'll end your suffering.”

The Biolizard turned to him and began snapping at him with its mouth. “You can't keep pace with me!” Shadow grunted as he skated away from it. It kept snapping at him for several seconds, however, until it had turned all the way around. It was at this point that it began shooting dark purple and orange spheres from its mouth at him. With the way it was positioned, Thorax found himself having to weave around the spheres after they missed Shadow, so he decided to fly up higher to get out of their way.

After a couple of seconds of this, it dropped its head, resting it against the ground as the cables that ran from its head to the life support machine on its back began to glow. “Still easily tires out. I need to destroy the life support rig to put an end to this,” Shadow thought as he ran towards its head, jumping onto one of the cables and grinding up it to the machine, which was glowing brightly as it restored the Biolizard’s strength. He leapt up to the dome in the center and unleashed a flurry of blows on it. A small explosion came from it after a few seconds and it blew Shadow off.

The Biolizard swung its head around to look at Shadow after he landed and it raised its left leg to stomp the ground. Suddenly, long tentacles made up of tubing and wiring erupted from the sides of the life support system, a roar coming from the giant lizard as it raised the tentacles up. Pink eggs formed around the tentacles, the eggs at the ends forming the vague shape of a five-fingered hand. “Huh. That’s a new trick. Some sort of mutation?” Shadow thought as he looked up at it. The Biolizard slammed its tentacles down and stared directly at him, the hedgehog commenting, “You think those will stop me? I already know your weaknesses!”

The Biolizard slammed its right tentacle down and Shadow leapt back from it. The tentacle came down too hard as it got stuck in the ground and it struggled to pull it free. Shadow took this opportunity to attack it, the tubing and wiring exploding after several seconds and retreating back into the life support system. “I knew it would pop,” Shadow remarked, looking up at the eggs floating around him. He used a Homing Attack on two of the eggs to get high enough in order to attack the machine again.

Thorax was still watching the fight from up on the ledge he’d flown up to and while he was amazed at how well Shadow was doing, he was still worried about him and he summoned the courage to stand up now. “I have to do something!” he told himself. He flew down as Shadow was blown off the Biolizard’s back again, bumping into the other tentacle as he flew and landing hard on his side. Thorax saw this and flew down faster, tapping into his magic as he neared the ground. He turned into Shadow as he landed and, seeing the Biolizard regrow its destroyed tentacle, he raised his ‘arms’ and waved them as he called, “Hey, hey! You looking for me?! I’m right here!”

The Biolizard swung its head around to look at him and thought he was actually Shadow, so it turned to him and swung its tentacles down at him. Thorax let his wings come out of his back so that he could better jump back from the resulting slams. Shadow had already gotten back up at this point and was staring at him. “Thorax, what are you doing?” he wondered. On its third swing at the changeling, its tentacle got stuck in the ground again. Shadow shot forward at this and attacked it again, getting another chance to attack the life support system.

He made a much better landing this time and turned to Thorax, but before he could say anything, they both noticed the Biolizard shift and turned to see it jump up. When it landed, the impact lifted them off the ground. Thorax looked first at the Biolizard, then at Shadow, and then had an idea. He turned back to normal, flew over, and grabbed Shadow before flying towards the Biolizard. The black hedgehog quickly caught onto what he was doing and used his Air Shoes to give him a speed boost. Once they were close enough, Thorax let him go and he used Chaos Control to teleport close enough to deliver another series of blows.

For a second afterwards, it seemed like the Biolizard was finished, but then it reared up again and, with a roar, slammed the ends of its tentacles against the ground like fists, propelling itself up into the air again. This time, it went towards the wall and planted its feet against it. Four tubes came out of ports in the wall and attached to the life support rig, causing the dome in the middle of it to start glowing brightly again as it roared at the two.

“Stop struggling. You cling to a crueler fate,” Shadow said. Thorax looked over at him for a moment, but then the Biolizard let out another roar and created many floating pink eggs around it. Shadow had a feeling he knew what it was going to do and told Thorax, “Stay back. I’ll show it which of is the true Ultimate Life Form.” When the eggs started coming towards them, he began skating around while firing off Chaos Spears, destroying them. It started throwing more, but he was able to keep them from hitting him or Thorax.

After a minute, the Biolizard brought its tentacles close together and created a large pink sphere between them. It then threw it at the platform. Before it hit, Shadow used Chaos Control to stop time and then jumped up towards it, rapidly punching and kicking at it for a moment before jumping and then shooting towards it to deliver two more powerful kicks that sent it back at the Biolizard, using Chaos Control to follow it up. Time returned to normal afterwards and he used the pink eggs that had appeared from the resulting explosion to attack the life support system again.

He jumped back onto one of the eggs and then jumped to deliver one last punch that destroyed it, pieces falling off of it that rained down around the core and the rig almost seeming ready to come off as the tubes detached and it fell down onto its side. Thorax was motionless as it slid towards him, but Shadow appeared next to him and grabbed him before teleporting away again, both of them reappearing a short distance away from the creature that had stopped moving.

Shadow and Thorax turned to look at the large lizard’s body, the former saying nothing as he looked at it, his face showing a small bit of pity for it. Thorax looked at him after a few moments and started, “It was… so full of pain… so much hurt and anger that was fueled purely by that pain… It’s like that was all it knew…”

Shadow nodded softly and said, “Yes. That life support rig on its back was the only thing that kept it alive. The amount of experimentation done on it in pursuit of the Ultimate Life Form left it as this. It never would have found peace as long as it lived.”

Thorax asked, “Is that why…?”

Shadow turned to him, “Yes. Some things just can’t be fixed, and attempting to fix them only makes things worse in the end. Sometimes, you have to do the cruelest thing to do something right.” They both heard a sound and turned to see an opening had appeared nearby. Shadow glanced back at Thorax and quietly said, “Let’s go.” The changeling nodded and they both ran into the opening, which closed afterwards, leaving the Biolizard alone in the cannon’s core.

Unbeknownst to them, after they left, a portal similar to the one the creature that had started this mess opened in the middle of the room…

Shadow and Thorax found themselves deposited on one of the buildings near the theater. When they looked up, they saw that where once there had only been empty white space before, more of Manehattan was appearing as a glowing white wave swept across it. Many of the buildings were still white, but it seemed that this little venture had restored more of the city back into existence. “Maybe other parts of this world have been restored as well?” Shadow wondered as the wave came to an end.

Thorax, naturally, was amazed by what had happened. “Wow! Did that restore the whole city? I heard it was big, but… Isn’t this a great view, Shadow?” He heard the black hedgehog let out a huff and turned to see him walking away. “Where are you going?” he asked.

“I don’t have time for sightseeing,” Shadow said. He continued walking without looking back.

He didn’t get very far when he heard a familiar voice say, “Shadow.” He paused, a surprised look on his face, and turned to see Black Doom’s Eye across from him making a projection of the leader of the Black Arms. He looked exactly as Shadow remembered with his hanging chains and necklaces and black clothing, and it made him tense up. “You have made excellent progress. I would expect nothing less from my finest creation,” Black Doom commended.

Thorax looked at Shadow as he responded, “‘Finest creation,’ Black Doom? I destroyed you once. I will do it again.” He shot forward and punched the projection, causing it to fade, before turning his attention to the Eye. Thorax could only watch as it floated around, surprised by how easily it was avoiding Shadow’s attacks.

After a few seconds, the Eye flew created Black Doom’s projection again and he gave a low laugh before saying, “You defeated us, but the Black Arms live on. And this temporal anomaly has accelerated my plans to revive my forces and consume the world. And so too will this other world-” He was cut off when Shadow launched a Chaos Spear at the Eye, hitting it directly in the center. While it was stunned, he got up close and delivered a series of blows to it with a shout. It flopped down onto the roof afterwards and faded away surrounded by green and purple mist.

Both Shadow and Thorax turned when they heard a noise a moment later to see the Eye had flown up next to the roof. “Enough of this! Show yourself; we’ll finish this here and now!” Shadow said when the projection reappeared.

Black Doom responded, “You are not ready yet. WE are not ready yet. Once you have been perfected, then we will have our reckoning.”

Shadow growled as the projection faded. “Get back here!” he said as the Eye turned to leave. He ran to the edge and leapt up to do a Homing Attack, but it flew up out of his reach so he ended up going over the edge. Fortunately, he was able to Boost across to a tall building across the road and run down the side of it to reach the ground. He clenched his fists as he growled, noticing the black streaks forming around them.

A sudden scream from nearby broke the still air and snapped him out of his anger. He turned his head to the right; it sounded like it had come from around the nearby corner. He skated past several buildings and looked; three Black Warriors were chasing someone down the middle of the road. He gritted his teeth and his eyes glowed a light red before he ran after them.

Whoever was being chased evidently lost their balance and fell as the Black Warriors came to a stop after a few seconds, the lead Warrior raising its right hand to slash with its claws. Before it could, Shadow appeared from Chaos Control directly underneath it and kicked it straight up into the air. He teleported up after it and kicked it into the side of one of the nearby buildings, the Black Warrior breaking down into nothing before it even hit the ground. Shadow then swiftly dealt with the other two before they could figure out what was going on, taking them both out with a single kick. Shadow reappeared a short distance away from the individual, remaining on one knee for a moment as the glow in his eyes faded. He then stood up and turned to face them.

He had been expecting to see that the one being pursued was one of the equines of this other world, but instead he saw a young, blonde-haired woman wearing blue clothes on her knees in the middle of the road. She must’ve sensed the danger had passed since she raised her head up after a few seconds and turned to look. She gasped when she saw Shadow and, after a moment of staring at her, his eyes widened in shock. Of all the things he was expecting, he was definitely not expecting this. “Maria?” he breathed.

The woman gasped again, this time in joy, and she ran over to him, wrapping her arms around him as she exclaimed, “Shadow!” The black hedgehog stood stock still for several moments. He could hardly believe this was actually happening.

The shock faded somewhat when they both heard another voice, a familiar voice, exclaim, “Maria!” Maria let go of Shadow and looked behind her and he looked past her to see Professor Gerald running towards them. He looked slightly out of breath, but he stood up straight as he came to a stop near them and said, “Thank you, Shadow.”

Shadow took a step back, still surprised. He looked down at the street as he thought, “They’re both here…?”

Maria turned back to Shadow and asked, “Where did you learn to fight like that?” Shadow looked at her for a moment before looking away again, still thinking about how this had happened.

“They must’ve been pulled from a point in time before the ARK disaster,” he reasoned. He looked up and his thoughts were cut off when he noticed someone else behind Professor Gerald. “Thorax?” he asked, causing both Gerald and Maria to turn and notice the changeling standing behind them.

Thorax currently had his eyes closed and his head raised up like he had smelled something delicious and was savoring it. He lowered his head after a moment and opened his eyes, looking a little sheepish as he noticed the looks he was getting. “Sorry, I… I couldn’t help it,” he admitted.

“My word!” Gerald exclaimed.

Maria looked at Shadow and asked, “Who’s this, Shadow? Did you make a new friend?” She stood up and ran over to Thorax, looking ready to hug him. Before she could reach him, his eyes narrowed and he lowered his body down, letting out a hiss at her that caused her to stop and both Gerald and Shadow to flinch.

Thorax realized they were staring at him after a few moments and he blinked. He quickly stood up straight and cried out, “I-I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to! I…” He lowered his head, “This is all new to me…”

Maria smiled after a moment, “Oh, that’s all right. I’m not upset.” She held her arms open, “May I?” Thorax looked up at her and it took him a few seconds to figure out what she was asking him. He hesitantly nodded and she wrapped her arms around him. He stiffened up at this, but he was able to keep his changeling instincts in check this time.

Professor Gerald, meanwhile, began to walk around Thorax, taking a look at him. “Very intriguing…” he remarked as his right hand adjusted his mustache. It was clear the academic in him already wanted to know all there was to know about this new creature.

With a moment to himself again, Shadow returned to his thoughts. “They don’t know what’s coming, what their fate is. But being here in this world…” He glanced off to the side, “Perhaps I can change their fate.”

He was brought out of his thoughts when he heard Maria ask, “Shadow? You look grim. Is everything all right?” Shadow quickly nodded so she wouldn’t think anything was wrong. “Well, come on, then! Let’s find a nice place to sit down so you can introduce us to your new friend!” she said.

Shadow blinked at this. “‘Friend?’ Hmph…” He decided to just let that one slide and walked over to Maria, Gerald, and Thorax. Perhaps he did have time for a short rest.

Author's Note

Meant to have this one done a little sooner, but it's such a big moment that I wanted to make sure I got it as right as I possibly could. I hope you all think I did.

Yes, the Biolizard is more or less the same as it was in the game. It's too important to Shadow's history, and I knew having it show up would help connect this story to the events of FiT, which it is now more properly synced up with.

Regarding the entrance to Westopolis, I decided that since Black Doom is orchestrating the events of "Shadow Generations" that things like the boss gate entrances would be a little different as a way to gauge Shadow's progress/evolution. If Shadow couldn't break the barrier on his own, then he wouldn't be ready to continue on the path that Black Doom has set him on. The Emerl illusion and the Biolizard are all part of that path, so there's no collaboration here.

It won't be long now before you get to see something you didn't get to see in the original story. Also...

THEY FLY NOW!

Aquatic Base

Shadow sat a bit awkwardly on a small pillow beside a café table. The pillow was soft even though it was drained of color, but he didn't think it was a comfortable way to sit in a public place. The ponies of this world must have thought it was since all the other tables at this café had them, but that wasn't the only thing making him feel awkward. He still couldn't believe this was actually happening.

Maria and Professor Gerald sat at his sides, and Thorax sat across from him. Thorax, per Gerald's request, was telling them about changelings, explaining what they were and how their magic worked. Shadow wasn't exactly paying attention, but he caught bits of it and noticed when Thorax demonstrated his shapeshifting magic to them, amazing Gerald and delighting Maria when there were suddenly two Shadows sitting at the table. He still didn't know what to do and he currently didn't have anything to focus on and distract him if even just for a little while.

He was brought out of his thoughts when he heard Maria ask, “Shadow?” He blinked and turned to look at her. She smiled seeing what she thought was a dazed look on his face and spoke softly to him, “Were you daydreaming again? You seem to do that a lot when we’re in class; it’s so fitting that you would do it when Thorax is trying to teach us about his species. It’s a good thing I’m always around to help you and keep you focused.”

Shadow blinked and thought about her words. “Classes aboard the ARK… That feels like another life entirely now,” he thought. He lowered his head, “And… you haven’t been here, Maria. Not for a long time… But maybe now…”

He raised his head and looked up, hearing Gerald ask Thorax, who was back to normal now, “So, your species feeds on… love?” Thorax nodded with an affirmative murmur. “I once read about creatures that did the same thing. Of course, that was well before I really began to focus on science and thus started to regard such things as myths, but it’s interesting to know such creatures do exist!” He raised an eyebrow, “You don’t… harm the ones you’re feeding off of when you do that… do you?”

Thorax quickly said, “No! No, no, I wouldn’t do that! I mean, I’m trying to see if I can sustain myself without having to follow the ways of my hive, and it seems like it worked earlier.” Seeing Gerald’s eyebrow still raised, he explained, “When I walked up behind you earlier, I could feel the love that Shadow and Maria have for each other. It was like it was hanging in the air and, like I said, I couldn’t help it; I just had to sample it. And, well… it’s been a long time since I’ve felt this full.” He turned to Shadow and Maria, “And you both feel okay, right? I mean, you don’t feel any different, do you?”

Maria replied, “Oh no, I feel fine! And that’s not something I can say every day.” At Thorax’s worried look, she explained, “You see, I have a… condition, and Grandfather has been doing research to find a cure for it.” Thorax nodded in understanding, so she continued, “I’m usually fine most days, but there are days where it gets so bad and… well, it’s hard to move around, or even be able to see, even on Space Colony ARK.”

Thorax tilted his head, “Space Colony ARK?”

Gerald looked at him and said, “That’s where I do my research, far away from prying eyes that might be planning to exploit it for their own ends. It’s also easier for me to monitor and manage Maria’s condition with her living up there.”

Thorax looked up and pointed with his hoof, “So, you live up… beyond the sky?”

Maria nodded, “Yes. You sound so surprised, Thorax. Is there nothing like that here in Equestria?”

Thorax looked down and answered, “Well, I’m not exactly from a place that knows about everything going on in Equestria, but no, not as far as I know.”

Maria looked up as she spoke, “There are a lot of things on Earth that I miss, but it’s nice living up in space too, among the stars. Even up there, they’re like diamonds. My Grandfather told me that it can take hundreds of years for the light of a star to reach Earth, and by the time we see it, the star might not even exist anymore.” She looked down at Thorax, “Isn’t that amazing?”

Thorax looked down at the table, “A light shines even though the star is gone…?”

Maria nodded, “That’s right.” She looked up again, “I wish I could see the stars here in Equestria. I wonder if they look different or the same.” She looked down and noticed Gerald had that look on his face that meant he was deep in thought. “Grandfather?” she asked, both Thorax and Shadow turning to look at him.

Gerald looked at Maria for a moment before he looked down at the table and mused, “I’m wondering about this temporal anomaly… What caused it? Is there a person behind all of this? If so, what are they like and why would they do such a thing? And just how far back or ahead in time were things pulled from?” He turned to Shadow, “You look the same, Shadow, but you’re quite different from the Shadow I know.”

Maria asked, “You mean like earlier, Grandfather?”

Gerald turned to her, “Not just that, Maria. There are other things…”

Shadow looked down at the table, suddenly unsure if this was the right time to tell them the truth. His thoughts turned to what Thorax had said. “A light shines even though the star is gone…” He was pulled out of his thoughts when he heard a crackling noise in his ear and realized it was his communicator. He glanced up at his ear for a moment before looking back down and saying, “Excuse me. I have a… call to take.” He stood up and walked away from the table, everyone staring after him curiously. When he was a fair distance away, he stopped and raised his right hand to his ear, saying, “Shadow here. Omega, is that you?”

On the other end, he heard the robot say, “AFFIRMATIVE. I HAVE MANAGED TO REESTABLISH RADIO COMMUNICATIONS THROUGH A WORKAROUND. I WAS ABLE TO TEST IT BY MAKING CONTACT WITH ROUGE. SHE REPORTS THAT SHE WAS ‘RESTORED’ BY SONIC AND IS CURRENTLY SCOUTING THE TOWN I MENTIONED EARLIER, WHICH IS APPARENTLY CALLED ‘PONYVILLE’.”

Shadow couldn’t help but feel a sense of relief at hearing that Rouge was okay, but he managed to keep it to himself as he replied, “Is that so? Good… that she’s not slacking off in the middle of a situation. Anything else?”

Omega replied, “YES. I AM STILL TRACKING THE OBJECT FROM EARLIER, BUT IN THE MEANTIME, ANOTHER TEMPORAL ANOMALY APPEARED MOMENTS AFTER MORE OF THIS CITY WAS RESTORED. IT IS LOCATED IN A PARK NOT FAR FROM YOUR CURRENT LOCATION. BASED ON MY SCANS OF THE AREA, IT WILL NOT BE HARD TO FIND THE PARK. IT IS COMPARABLE IN SIZE TO MERIDIAN PARK IN EMPIRE CITY.”

Shadow nodded, “Copy that. I’m on my way.” He switched off his communicator and turned to look back at the café table. At the moment, Maria was happily talking to Thorax and Professor Gerald was looking at them both, so it seemed like they were having a good time. He walked back over to the table and said, “I’m sorry, but… I have to go.”

Maria asked, “Go? Go where, Shadow?”

Shadow answered, “There’s still much of this world that still needs to be restored. And there’s someone I need to find. I have a new lead; I have to get back on the trail.”

Thorax spoke, “Well, we’ll come with you, then!”

Gerald turned to him and sharply said, “Out of the question! Maria was almost killed once already! I will not put her in any more dangerous situations if I can help it!”

Shadow nodded, “The Professor is right. I’ll be fine. We’ll all be fine. I’ll take care of everything.”

Thorax asked, “But, I can come with you, right Shadow?”

Shadow replied, “You’ve done more than enough already, Thorax. You should take the time to rest and recover, especially after earlier. Just find somewhere safe to hide first.” He turned and took a few steps before getting into a running stance and then taking off down the street with everyone looking after him, Gerald in particular having a concerned look on his face.

Shadow turned and ran up the side of one of the taller buildings around him to see if, based on what Omega had said, he could see the park he was looking for. A couple seconds of Boosting allowed him to get on the building’s square-shaped roof and he walked around as he looked across the city below. He soon saw it: a sizable area where there were no buildings, but there did appear to be small structures and trees and other plants rising up from the ground. He nodded; that had to be it. He leapt off the top of the building and started making his way towards it.

He reached the entrance to the park after a minute and he could see that it looked a bit dilapidated. Weeds were running rampant and as he started down the path in front of him, he saw a small stage for plays or music performances that looked to be in desperate need of maintenance off to his right. The benches in front of it were no better as they looked damaged and some of them looked like they had been thrown from their spots. “It looks like these horses… ponies are capable of leaving things abandoned as well,” he thought as he walked, correcting himself on the terminology used in this world.

After a few minutes of wandering around the park, he found the opening floating above the surface of a pond. He peered over the side of the arched stone bridge he was on; it was displaying the image of a circular room and a metal corridor on the other side of a doorway on its surface. “A base? One of the Doctor’s, perhaps?” he thought. Thinking of Eggman caused his thoughts to turn back to Professor Gerald and he paused for a moment. “The Professor doesn’t need to know about what his grandson does,” he decided before jumping over the side of the bridge and falling into the opening.

He dropped into the circular room he saw on the opening and he looked around. There were a few computer consoles along the sides of the rooms, but they didn’t look like they belonged to Dr. Eggman. He faced forward and looked down, bending down to take a closer look at the circular spot in the center of the room. There was a symbol of a bird-like creature with outstretched wings and what appeared to be the Sun above it etched into the floor.

Shadow stared at the symbol for a minute. Had he seen it before? “Maybe I saw it in G.U.N.’s databanks once. It doesn’t seem familiar,” he thought. He looked up at the corridor in front of him. Even if this wasn’t one of Eggman or G.U.N.’s bases, there was no telling what he might find further inside. He readied himself and then shot off into the corridor, turning slightly to follow the way it slanted.

Shadow passed through the doorway at the end of the hall and came to a stop. He stared for a few moments, taking in what he was seeing. The floor he was standing on came to an end a short distance ahead. There was some sort of metallic ball at the end of the floor and beyond that was a steep drop. There was no walkway over the gap, and there wasn't anything that he could jump to and run on to get across.

He walked over to the ball to examine it. Its surface was reflective and it was floating on its own. He raised his right foot and placed it on top of the ball. He saw the surface shimmer and the metal ‘splash’ as if he'd stepped into a puddle of water, but it felt firm to him. He stepped up on top of the ball and as he reached the center, it began to move. It didn't go too fast, and he quickly figured out that if he slowed his steps, the ball would slow down too. Somehow, it was attuned to his motions as well as the way he was facing.

“Is this some sort of experimental transport system?” he wondered as he maneuvered it around the corner ahead. As he turned to go around the next corner, he noticed a set of windows in the wall to his right and turned to look, raising an eyebrow at what he saw. “Fish swimming… This is an underwater base? Or maybe it's a laboratory, a black site even,” he thought as he kept walking.

It didn’t take him long to complete the crossing, slowing the ball down when he approached solid ground and jumping off when he was close enough. The door in front of him slid open when he landed and he walked through a short corridor into a much larger room. He looked up; there was a large column in the center of the room with a circular platform halfway up that looked it served as a way to reach the raised sections in the corners of the room. He faced forward and ran around the room in a circle. There were four doors on this level between the raised sections, including the one he just came through. The door to the left of where he’d come in from was open while the others were closed, so he decided to start there.

After a short hallway, Shadow found himself in a slightly larger room. He stopped and stared; many small metal spheres like the one he’d been walking on were floating around the room, and there was what appeared to be a pool of liquid metal on the floor with parts of the floor sticking up out of it in the middle of the room. There were also two cylindrical devices atop the metal ooze, one in front of him and the other at the other end of the room, next to a set of stairs that appeared to be damaged going up to another door. Curious, Shadow threw a Chaos Spear at the far cylinder. Upon being hit, the device spun and it begam to glow blue; immediately afterwards, the spheres in the room were drawn to it, crowding around it. “Interesting. Whoever this lab belongs to, their science is quite advanced,” he thought. He then moved to investigate the door at the top of the stairs, jumping off one of the spheres to get up to it.

Beyond the door was a longer corridor. As he ran, Shadow noticed two things: there were ashes scattered about on the floor and walls, and there was a strange black-purple streak going down the corridor. It was almost like a slime trail, but he had no idea what it was and certainly not what it belonged to. He decided he'd better not touch it as he kept running.

At the end of the corridor, he entered a room that had been either for testing or containment as there was a glass tube on a machine stretching from the floor to the ceiling in the center of the room. Said tube was broken with only a little bit of glass left on the bottom and top, but that wasn't the only thing in the room. There were windows going around the room that were all shattered, broken computer consoles lying along the edges of the room, and, worst of all, three bodies near the center of the room. They were all humans dressed head to toe in protective wear and none of them appeared to be moving.

Shadow stepped over the broken glass littering the room, making his way over to the nearest body. He knelt down next to it and checked; several moments later, he leaned back and shook his head. “Dead… And I'm sure the others are as well,” he thought. He stood up and walked over to the containment unit, staring at his reflection in the glass. “What happened here? What sort of experiments were they conducting?” he wondered.

As he was staring, he noticed a deliberate movement in the glass. There was something behind him, and it was creeping up on him. He remained still for a moment before whirling around and launching a Chaos Spear at it. As it reeled from the hit, he took a look at it. It looked like some kind of purple lizard with cracks along its body that were glowing. Its color made him think of the streak in the corridor. As he stared at it, five more suddenly leapt out of the floor around the center of the room. Shadow glanced in their direction for a moment before jumping up and throwing Chaos Spears at them as well, then turning to the first one and taking it out with a single Homing Attack. He proceeded to take out the others before they had a chance to recover and then ran out of the room.

As he ran down the corridor, more of the strange creatures appeared out of thin air. There were more of the lizards, but there were also smaller winged ones, and when he got back to the room with the metal spheres, there were also large worm-like creatures that came out of the floor as well as orange like lava versions of all of them. They surrounded the door leading back to the central area.

Shadow got ready to fight them, but then he noticed the cylindrical device in the middle of them and got an idea. He leapt off the first orange lizard that tried to pounce on him and twisted around to avoid the purple projectiles that two of the flying ones launched at him and threw a Chaos Spear at the device to activate it. As he suspected, it drew the creatures towards it, ripping their bodies apart in the process. He landed afterwards and looked around. “That worked, but what are these things, and what do they want? They seem too coordinated to be mindless beasts,” he thought. He ran back into the central area and found that the door on the other side had opened, so he ran through it, using more of the metal spheres floating around to reach the door on the other side of a gap.

The hallway beyond the door curved as it went down. It led to another short hallway; Shadow noticed there were spots where doors could close, no doubt in case of emergency. He found another large metal sphere in the room beyond, this one floating above a floor that was completely submerged under water. He didn't really want to know how deep it was, so he stepped on the sphere and started walking.

He didn't get far before he saw a white glow ahead of him, a robot appearing from it that hovered in midair. It looked a little like a G.U.N. Beetle, but it didn't have any markings on it to indicate it belonged to G.U.N. He heard a sound like it was loading a weapon; he didn't want to test how durable the sphere was, so he threw a Chaos Spear at it to knock it out of the air. As it fell, more appeared ahead of him, and they all turned their sights on him. He grit his teeth and started walking faster, trying to close the gap before they could fire at him.

He managed to knock out most of them, but one he overlooked fired its gun at him and one shot hit the sphere. The shot created a hole and the sphere began to compress quickly. Fortunately, he wasn’t far from a round platform, so he was able to jump to safety before he lost his footing. As he landed, a bunch more robots appeared suddenly, these ones looking more humanoid and coming in a variety of colors. Some were light gray, some were yellow, and some were red.

Shadow grunted, “Hmph! There’s no strength in numbers!” He then dashed towards them to prove it, weaving and dodging around their cannon shots and missiles as he fought back. It took less than a minute for the platform to be covered with scraps and pieces of wiring. Shadow knelt down next to one of the robots and examined it. “Is this one of the Doctor’s designs? It looks similar to his work, but I don’t remember him ever utilizing a design like this. The closest he’s done is the E-Series. And those other robots… Are they the same?” he wondered.

As he stood up, he heard a growling from behind him. He looked back over his shoulder; one of the purple lizard monsters from earlier was standing on one of the columns he had navigated around earlier looking at him. He just huffed and turned to leave; he didn’t have time for everything that had a problem with him. He had only taken a few steps when he heard a whirring sound followed a moment later by a cracking sound to his left, causing him to stop. He turned to look and his eyes widened; the creature was firing an orange beam from its mouth at the window across from it. It had been hit earlier by a stray missile from one of the robots and it hadn’t suffered any visible damage, but the beam was causing the glass to crack and it was sweeping it towards the other windows. “Oh no,” Shadow thought, realizing it was too late to stop it. He turned and ran towards the edge of the platform, using Chaos Control to teleport around to the other side of the room.

Back at the entrance to the room, Thorax flew in through the door and landed at the edge, looking down at the water below. He then looked up and saw the creature further ahead, still firing its laser at the glass. It had almost completed its sweep. Thorax wasn’t quite sure what was happening, but even from where he was, he was able to see when the water started to leak through the cracks, and his eyes widened as he realized what was about to happen. Before the glass completely shattered, he turned and flew back up the hallway, panicking more as he heard an alarm going off and the sound of water pouring in in the distance moments later.

He made it back to the circular room and flew up onto the raised circular platform in the middle, peering over the edge. It didn’t take long for the water to start pouring in and filling up the room. As he watched the water level begin to rise, he realized that the other doors in the room were closed, but this door and all the doors beyond it must still be open for the room to be filling up as quick as it was. “Why is that? Is it because of that Black Doom guy? Is he somewhere here too?” he wondered. He looked back down at the water; the room was more than half full now, but it seemed to be slowing down a little. He flew up towards the ceiling; he needed to make a decision. “I have to help Shadow!” he decided, readying his magic and steeling himself as much as he could as the water got closer.

Shadow, meanwhile, was skating as fast he could to stay ahead of the flooding. The alarm was going off and the red lights practically colored the entire hall he was running down. He entered another hallway and heard a computerized female voice say, “Area shutdown in progress.” He saw glass doors with the bird symbol in the center lowering down from the ceiling ahead of him and he shot forward, dropping down and sliding along the floor to make it under the last door before it closed. He stood up and continued running. He wasn’t sure the glass was going to stop the water, but he wasn’t going to stick around to find out.

More robots and strange creatures appeared to block his path as he ran. There were robots and monsters that were much bigger than any of the ones he’d faced so far, but he kept tearing through them as he kept going. That is, until he reached a room where there were windows on both sides. A shadowy figure that looked like a hedgehog appeared in front of each one and Shadow stopped in the middle of the room to turn around and look. They kind of looked like him, but their bodies were purple and seemed almost crystalline. They stared down at him for a moment before turning to the windows and unleashing a beam from their hands. It didn’t take long for the glass to crack, the water beginning to leak through.

Shadow turned and ran, trying to get out of the room before it started flooding in earnest, but the door at the end didn’t open when he approached it. He stared at it for a moment before turning to look back over his shoulder, the glass shattering and water pouring in a few seconds later. Shadow narrowed his eyes; getting out of the way of the rush of water was his best chance of getting out of this. He teleported up on top of the door frame and then teleported up near the top of one of the columns in the room holding the platforms up. He placed his hands on it and held on tight as he could, looking down at the water filling up below.

After a minute, the water had almost risen up to him and he was starting to lose his grip. He grunted as he tried to secure his grip and turned his head to look down again. The water was so close he could almost touch it. He wasn’t sure what to do next, but as he looked down at the water, he noticed something moving below the surface. He squinted, trying to get a better look at it. Suddenly, it broke through the surface of the water, revealing it was a black dolphin with light blue eyes. It took in a breath and looked up at Shadow. “Shadow! Quick, grab on!” it said in Thorax’s voice.

“Thorax?!” Shadow asked, surprised that the changeling had not only come after him but had managed to get this far in spite of the flooding. This wasn’t the time to wonder or say anything; whatever Thorax was thinking had to be better than staying put. He let go of the column and fell into the water next to the transformed changeling and put his right arm over his back.

“Take a deep breath and hold on tight!” Thorax said, both of them taking a deep breath before he dived under the water. He swam towards one of the broken windows and maneuvered around the shards of glass that remained. Once outside, he angled upward and started swimming as fast as he could towards the surface.

They could feel the water pressure pressing against them as Thorax swam up, the light above still distant. Shadow squeezed his eyes shut, trying to keep his mouth closed and avoid breathing in the water. As he focused, he felt something calling to him, feeling something shifting inside of him. Outside, Thorax saw several black trails beginning to swirl around the hedgehog, his desire to reach the surface keeping him going instead of stopping to stare. Tendrils reached out of the swirls, aiming for Shadow, though they stopped and retreated as Shadow opened his eyes and held his arms out, both of them suddenly shooting straight up towards the surface.

They broke through the surface of the water and fell back onto it after a moment, Shadow remaining on the surface on top of some strange creature while Thorax went under again for a moment. He then surfaced and stared at the creature in shock. It looked kind of like a manta ray, but it was made up of black tentacles like the ones that had been reaching for Shadow and it had a pair of red eyes on each side of its head behind its horns. Shadow raised his head and it shot forward as he balanced on its back, surfing on it.

As Thorax returned to his normal form and flew to catch up with him, Shadow looked around at where they had surfaced. They were surrounded by tall stone walls and towers, broken stone arches and pieces of walkways resting on the surface of the water. He maneuvered it around these obstacles and aimed for a flat stone square that had a set of stairs leading up attached to it. As he jumped out of the water, the creature disappeared, seemingly going back into his body as he landed on solid ground.

As he was staring down at his hands, Thorax flew up next to him and exclaimed, “Wow, Shadow! How did you do that? And what was that thing? Where did it go?”

Snapped back to reality, Shadow admitted, “I… don’t know.” He turned to the changeling, “I appreciate your help, but why did you come after me?”

Thorax stared at him for a moment before saying, “Well, you said to take the chance to rest and recover. I did, so I thought I’d follow you and see where you were going next! Maria and Gerald encouraged me to do it as well.” Shadow stared at him for a moment, then they both heard a light splash next to them followed by a ribbit. They both looked down; a frog was resting on the ground at their feet/hooves. Shadow looked to his left and saw a big, furry purple feline wearing a tan belt sitting on another stone square as he cast his fishing rod into the water. Shadow looked back down at the frog and bent down, picking it up. He then turned and walked up the stairs, Thorax following him even though he was confused.

The cat was pulling his line out of the water when he heard the footsteps coming down the stairs behind him. He stood up and turned to look, seeing Shadow walking down the stairs with Thorax following him. “Uh, hello. You’re Shadow, aren’t you? Hey, you found my good buddy, Froggy!” he said.

Shadow reached the bottom of the stairs and knelt down to set Froggy down, the amphibian hopping over to the cat. “He gets away from you a lot, Big,” Shadow remarked, though he sounded slightly amused as Big picked up the frog.

“Oh no. It’s more like a game, really. Froggy runs away because he knows I’ll always follow him,” Big replied. He looked up from the frog to Shadow and said, “We just got done with a game recently. Froggy got into the castle at Soleanna and I followed him. We even got to meet Princess Elise. She’s very nice.” He looked around, “We stepped into a glowing hole after we left the castle and ended up here. I think the old castle used to be here.”

Shadow looked down as he processed this information. “Soleanna… That’s why that symbol looked familiar. It’s the crest of Soleanna.” He turned to look towards the water, “But why would Soleanna have a hidden underwater laboratory hidden under their old castle? Was whatever happened there the reason the castle moved to its current location?”

While he was lost in thought, Thorax introduced himself to Big. “Hi! My name’s Thorax!” he said.

Big replied, “Hello. My name is Big, and this is Froggy.” Suddenly, there was a whooshing sound and everyone turned to see a hole floating over the water, displaying the Manehattan park on its surface. “Another one of those glowing holes,” Big remarked.

“It’ll take us back to the white world,” Shadow said. He looked at Big, “Come with us. You can find more places to fish in that park and the city.” That seemed to pique the cat’s curiosity and he followed them into the hole, which closed after they were all through.

Shortly after they landed back in the park, near the pond with the portal Shadow and Thorax had gone through, the park regained its color along with the street outside of the park’s walls. Big looked around while Froggy rested on the palm of his left hand. Thorax looked at him and said, “Equestria doesn’t normally look like this. There’s usually a lot more color and noise.”

Big replied, “Oh, I don’t mind. I like the silence.” He turned and walked over to the nearby pond, “It’s easier to focus on the fish.” He sat down at the edge of the pond, casting his line into the water. Both Shadow and Thorax stared at him, each with a bit of amusement on their faces.

Unbeknownst to any of them, they were being watched, not by Black Doom, but by another being, the one who caused the flooding of the lab. It was unable to do anything itself at the moment as it was currently sealed away, but the temporal anomaly was weakening its prison, allowing its power to spill out. Its green and pink eyes focused on Shadow, burning with hatred and desperation. Desperation for freedom. Desperation for its desire to exist.

Author's Note

Hooray, another chapter out! I hope it's to your liking. It's currently a bit late at the time of posting.

What's there to say... Well, the part about with the flooding was inspired by the Sonic '06 level pack for the fangame "Sonic Robo Blast 2" by Mikhael Blur. The Aquatic Base level features several areas that are underwater.

A lot of the dialogue is pulled from the optional conversations in the game. Aside from that, I can't think of much else that needs elaborating on. Let me know if I'm wrong. Until next time!