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!