CHAPTER 1

THINGS THAT NEVER CHANGE

Three months had passed since Shadow had left Tech City due to the incident of a darkness inside of him that was using his body to perform evil deeds. He had left not only because he had an extremely guilty conscience for hurting all of his friends and other innocent lives, but also to become a stronger person.

Shadow was driving his motorcycle through the empty and seemingly endless desert. While he drove, he glanced at the full white moon setting in the middle of the clear night sky. He suddenly stopped the motorcycle and got off of it. He stood in the thick and cold sand on the ground and stared at the moon in sudden sadness. As the gentle yet cold wind brushed through his quills, memories that took place months ago had traveled through his mind. He bit his lip slightly as he began to remind himself why he had left his home in the first place. "…Rouge…", he spoke in a low tone. "Perhaps we're both looking at the same moon…" He was suddenly startled when he heard multiple loud growls behind him. He quickly spun around only to find a swarm of brown and deformed looking monsters slowly approaching him while they walked on four legs. He studied their practically glowing red eyes, sharp drooling fangs, long sharp claws, and long tails.

The strange creatures almost looked like demonic wolves. He didn't understand where they had came from. There was a lot of them. More than he could count.

He took a step back as they slowly approached him. "Almas?" He clenched his fists as he prepared himself to fight them. "Great!" He spoke sarcastically, "More of them!" He tried not to make it too obvious to them but, he had fought a big group of them earlier and he still had not recovered from the last fight.

The creatures began to lash out and attack him.

When he saw one coming at him, he took his fist and punched it hard in the face.

The impact was so hard, it knocked the creature back quite a distance. The creature had slammed into another causing both of them to hit the ground hard.

When Shadow saw more of the creatures running over to him, a yellow aura started to form around his hands. He held his hands up towards some of them. "Chaos Spear!"

Some of the monsters were sent flying back from them being attacked by the multiple blasts of energy. Shadow had noticed the more Almas he defeated, the more they kept coming. He could feel himself falling low on energy by each waking second and he didn't know how much longer he could keep fighting. He knew he had to end it all in one huge attack that would hopefully take out all of them at the same time. He stopped firing the blasts of yellow energy at the monsters and waited for most of the creatures to get closer to him. When they got close enough to him, a red aura off energy flowed around his body. He then began to unleash his attack on the monsters, "Chaos Blast!"

Suddenly the red energy that surrounded his body spread out to all of the monsters that had surrounded him. After when the blast defeated most of the Almas, Shadow felt completely drained of his energy. He felt so weak, he suddenly collapsed into the cold sand and fell unconscious.

The few Almas remaining had seen the hedgehog fall helplessly to the ground. They slowly began to approach his unconscious body with their mouths watering. Suddenly, they all scattered when they heard multiple vehicles approaching and also heard voices shouting coming from a distance.

A woman's voice had shouted out at the Almas causing them to become startled. "Back off, you blood thirsty jerks!"

When the creatures looked in the direction from where the noises were coming from, two of them were shot by a strange white laser that blew them to bits from the inside out.

Three figures that were riding on air boards stopped and stood in front of the last creature that was remaining.

A green male hawk who appeared in his early twenties held a fairly big silver gun that took the appearance of a rifle in his hands. He turned to the purple swallow woman who stood next to him. He formed a sly smirk towards her. "Your new toy really does the trick against these monsters. You really outdid yourself this time, babe."

The purple swallow couldn't help but to blush as he complimented the gun he was using. The woman had looked like she was around the same age as the green hawk. The way she was dressed, it made her appear to look as a mechanic. "Thanks, Jet."

The gray albatross that was standing next to the two sighed in annoyance. He had appeared much older than the two. He looked like he was in his early thirties. "You two make me sick to my s-stomach."

The purple swallow crossed her arms across her chest and gave the albatross an annoyed look. "Oh shut up, Storm", she spoke bitterly.

"Don't tell me to s-shut up, Wave!"

While the two were bickering, Jet saw the last Almas about to charge towards him. He raised the gun and pointed it at the creature. When he pulled the trigger, a white laser fired from the barrel of the gun and shot the creature in its hand and instantly blowing it to bits.

Afterwards, Blood scattered all onto the sand.

The purple swallow woman cringed at the gruesome sight of blood. "Gross!"

Jet lowered the gun and studied the many bodies of the monsters that were laying in the sand. Suddenly the body of the person they had rescued caught his eye.

Storm stared at some of the bodies of the monsters laying around in the sand. "I wonder what those monsters were after anyway." He then saw Jet and Wave standing in front of something. He decided to walk over to see what they were looking at. "What's going on?"

Wave slowly turned to the green hawk who stared down in disbelief. "Oh my God…Jet it's…"

Storm's eyes widened as he stared down as well.

Jet couldn't believe it as he never took his eyes off of the unconscious black and red hedgehog laying in the sand. "…Shadow…"

In The Next Chapter...

Charmy: I miss Captain Shadow...

Tonya: He didn't even say goodbye...

Knuckles: Don't you ever think that he'll never come back?

Rouge: Shadow will come back! He promised!

Shadow: ...Where am I?