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“I’m never going to get used to that feeling.” Sonic’s voice echoed throughout a bleak world.
“Silver, Blaze, any idea where or when we are?” asked Shadow.
“Not a clue.” replied the princess.
In front of them was an empty city, devoid of life. The sky an unnaturally foreboding grey while a purple entity slowly seemed to be slicing through the atmosphere. An otherwise gentle wind bounced like a tornado through the streets. Cars stay parked in gridlocked traffic, not a speck of dust anywhere to be found.
“It’s as if everyone just vanished.” commented a rather cautious ivory hedgehog. Golden irises flicked continuously around the hollow street. Not a window broken, not a fire started. The atmosphere was tight, unnaturally so. As if very slowly the world itself was trying to squeeze air out of you. The quartet walked down the road, an emptied roundabout some ways away. A lone tree withered with dark pale browns and green leaves falling from it.
“I don’t think anyone is here. Sonic, call in Tails and tell him to start the process to bring us elsewhere.” Said the dark hedgehog, the quartet nearly having reached the tree.
“No, someone is here… I feel it.” Responded Sonic.
“Sonic, there are already enough dimension’s we can’t afford to waste time here-” Blaze cut herself off as all three of the Hedgehog’s looked at each other before standing at attention. “What?” she whispers.
“I heard something, like the clashing of metal in the distance.” Said Silver, who was currently trying to use his telekinesis to give himself a boost in the air to see better.
Almost instantly after having said something, the sound of metal being dragged along the road surface vibrated across the buildings. Now, the entire group stood ready for battle as the metal sound hitched up a surface before quieting down.
“Sonic, call now.” Shadow glared daggers at Sonic who seemed ready to comply.
“Tails,” Sonic whispered. “We need to get out of here, there’s nothing here.”
“Nothing here?” Responded a smugly familiar voice.
“S-Shadow?” Sonic looked at Shadow, who shook his head. Suddenly the tree in front of them started to lose all of its leaves in quick succession. As the last of the leaves fell a thin object struck out from behind the tree before cutting the tree down with one fell swoop. From behind it emerged a perfect mirror image of Shadow, apart from a blue and a white iris each. Held in his left hand facing right at the quartet was an extremely long katana sword marred with various greens, reds, and the occasional blending into a black.
“Who are you?” asked the quartets Shadow.
“I’ve done it.” Ignored the new Shadow.
“Done what?” Inquired Silver.
“I have defied destiny! My creator has her revenge!” exclaimed the opposing Shadow.
“Her revenge?” Shadow stood stunned, in his mind ‘her’ could only refer to one person.
“Shadow, something’s not right about him.” Mumbled Blaze to her left, towards the group.
“Those who look with clouded eyes see nothing but Shadow’s.” remarked the far more smug Shadow.
“Gateway is open, Sonic.” piped in Tails through their communicator.
“A gateway? It all makes sense now.”
The quartet looked at each other before Blaze stepped forward ahead of the group, signaling her arm backwards.
“Blaze, I’ve dealt with you before. I will do so again.” The smug Shadow contorted his blade back behind him as the trio accompanying her backed off towards the gateway.
“A touching reunion.” Embers emitted from the cats’ hands as she spoke.
Blaze propelled herself off of the ground with her fire, as did the other Shadow with an invisible energy that seemed to carry him. The sword rose towards the sky and towards Blaze quickly, the pyrokinetic only just dodging the attack. She leaned forwards, her body engulfed in flame and right towards Shadow who forced her upwards with the flat end of his katana. The pair continued to circle each other in orbit, not noticing the arrival of more combatants beneath them.
“You’ll pay for what you did, Shadow!” shouted another familiar voice, Blaze didn’t have time to look down.
“Silver, I told you to get out of here!”
“B-Blaze?” Exclaimed the surprised telekinetic. “B-but I thought I just saw you die!”
“I- what?” Blaze faltered for a moment, though the moment was all Shadow needed as he flew towards the princess and looked to impale her, a golden barrier quickly grasping Blaze and pulling her down to the ground. Shadow stuck his sword into the side of a building a few floors up and turned to face the new party from a height.
Blaze found herself surrounded by friends who didn’t look how she remembered them. Amy, Omega, Silver, and Knuckles. Though, since when did Knuckles look so purple, and what was with the white markings on his body? A brown pendant with light blue feathers draped around his neck and he held a gold staff with a shimmering light blue metal at its end pointing in multiple directions. Omega’s usual red paint had been stripped, a chrome shell of a robot otherwise unchanged apart from a few wires drooping from it’s back. Amy still had her red dress, but a blue coat with white outlines that looked nearly identical to her own was above it with soot and holes covering it thoroughly, her usual white cloves now had a red plastic on their backside, her quills were much longer, and her Piko Piko hammer was blue and white with a gold metal on either end. The biggest, yet least noticeable change, was Silver. White chest fluff grew around him and to his back like some sort of shoulder coat, golden irises were cyan instead and much like the red gem on her forehead, Silver had a golden one. A white battle skirt with black trimming, cyan circles and golden lighting hung torn from Silver’s waist and a rapier sword hung from a hilt connected. Finally, she got a good look at Shadow, two very short quills hung lazily in front of his forehead, and behind him many many more short and medium quills branched out. A charcoal coat with gold trimming that reached long black boots with similar trimming apart from the bottom metal part, which was red, looked immaculate compared to the condition of everyone else’s attire.
“Silver, she’s not… Your Blaze.” Remarked Amy, looking down at her whilst still in a fighting stance.
In a split-second Silver’s eyes looked down towards Blaze, a number of tiny emotions shifting over his face before settling on a mixture of heartbreak and determination.
“R-Right… Of course she isn’t.”
“Tell me, you five, why do you fight when the end is a mere ten minutes away? What is there to gain?” Asked Shadow, pushing himself and his sword from off his plateau. As he did a few bricks gave way causing the building to slump to it’s left somewhat.
“What is there to lose?” Began an enraged Knuckles. “After everyone you’ve killed, Sonic, Tails, the Chaotix. My brothers!” Knuckles stopped momentarily, as the wind began to quiet it’s howl. “Cream and her mother, the Babylon Rogues. You killed them too, you killed Blaze… You even killed your own partner. If all I have is ten minutes, then snuffing your life out and making you suffer for your actions is all I want to do with it.”
“Do you think you can save them? Any of them? Is denial leading you to believe that by ending my life you’ll redeem them?” Shadow paused, pointing his sword at all five members of the group. “You are too weak to save anyone. Not even yourselves.”
“Ten minutes?” Questioned the princess of pyro, rising to stand.
“Oho, you don’t know, do you?” Taunted Shadow, a wide smug grin plastering his face as menacing fangs poked their way out of hiding. “In ten minutes the combined energy of Dark Gaia and Final Doom will collide, tearing this world apart entirely and through the power of chaos, I will be it’s god!”
“All I have to do is wipe out the four of you… But seeing as you’ve been so kind as to join this reunion, Blaze, I shall slay you again too.” Shadow poised his blade, as he did so Silver, Knuckles, Amy, and Omega drew their weapons.
“Come with me, you four. I know a dimension that’s safe.” Blaze whispered from behind the four remaining heroes. The ivory and gold hedgehog turned towards his group and nodded at them. Amy, and Omega took off towards the gateway far down the street. Blaze slowly trailed behind and as she did she watched Silver charge towards Shadow, the two locking their blades. Meanwhile, Knuckles continually tried and failed to land an attack on Shadow who was fending the both of them off easily.
“Amy, you and Omega head through that gateway. On the other side a Shadow, Sonic, and Silver will be waiting. They’re good people, okay?”
“Blaze! What are you doing!?”
“Saving some friends.” Blaze tore off in a barrel of flames towards the combative trio who had since backed up towards the gateway. She looped around, having only gotten halfway to the gateway with the other two. As she looped back she watched as Shadow who was just as quick as her dashed towards the escaping Amy and Omega so with all her might she surged forward shooting flames at the ground in front of Shadow.
Amy finally reached the gateway and Omega was within distance of it, but he stopped and turned around. A multitude of machine gun bullets fired towards Shadow who seemed to be slicing through the ones he couldn’t avoid with his elongated katana. Knowing that Shadow would soon reach the gateway she barrel rolled herself towards him in a last ditch effort. One loud scrape of metal against metal soon followed by the sound of a both a metallic and human thud against the ground left Blaze a little dizzy with her back against a lamppost. What she saw somewhat terrified her, Omega had been cleaved clean in half diagonally. Shadow was already standing, Knuckles and Silver had almost already made their way over who signaled for a distraught Amy Rose to go through the gateway. Quickly the dark hedgehog walked over to Blaze, pressing his blade into her left shoulder.
“You have fight, I admire that. Tell me, what do you love the most? Give me the pleasure of taking that away from you when I go through your gateway.” Shadow jammed the sword further into her arm just to watch her squirm a little more. However a sudden echidna glided into and tackled Shadow to the ground, the pair getting into a fistfight. Silver now made his way over to Blaze in full on protective mode.
“Blaze I- Do you know what you're gonna have to do?” He asked gently.
Blaze simply nodded with as much determination as she could, a small fire starting in her right hand. “On my go, ok?” Blaze once again nodded. “Three, two, one, go.” Silver using his psychokinesis quickly pulled out the katana from Blaze's left shoulder as she bit her inner cheek considerably while bringing the fire towards her left shoulder to stop the immense bleeding. Small, short whimpers of pain escaping.
Knuckles threw Shadow towards a car, the latter sticking into the windshield. The dark red echidna who bordered on purple stood atop the car and leaned over Shadow’s face, who instantly used his pendant as a way to choke him. Silver quickly ran towards the pair and punched Shadow in the jaw who let go momentarily, the purple cat crawling towards the gateway that was no less than ten paces away. Together the pair of Knuckles and Silver threw Shadow at the same lamppost.
“Knuckles, go help Blaze. I’ll deal with this.”
“Two minutes left.” Teased Shadow, picking up his sword now coated in fresh blood droplets before quickly swiping his sword leftwards, all of the new blood fleeing from it.
The sound of metal clashed through the streets as the sky visibly started to turn a hazy red. Smoke clouds seemed to billow as a comet rapidly enlarged itself. The princess was surprised to be rather violently picked up and run towards the gateway. The sound of metal getting closer and closer, and from the few glimpses she got it seemed Shadow was winning. Just like that, the two of them disappeared through the gateway. Now, only Silver and Shadow were left.
“Tell me, are you content to die here with me?” Barked a pleased Shadow.
“I’m content with you dying here!”
“Foolish answer!”
The pair continued to swing at each other until the both of them were an arms reach from the gateway. The two locked blades in a stalemate as the comet inched closer and closer towards the planet. Silver broke them away as they both skidded a few paces apart. The ivory hedgehog motioned for his jet black counterpart to come at him. Shadow swung at Silver’s head, which he blocked, then at his knee, which Silver blocked and then at his chin, which Silver did not block, because Silver had sliced through Shadow with his rapier, leaving it stuck in him. Silver then darted towards the gateway, but if he had looked back, he would have noticed that Shadow was a pool of liquid that quickly evaporated into the atmosphere. Following that, the atmosphere quickly evaporated, as did everything else within the dimension and the portal closed.