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.