AN: What's up, everyone?

So as you guys have seen from the story title, this will be a remake of Sonic Forces from the ground up; there was so much potential for the direction of the game's story, and I wanted to capitalize on it by delivering my take on what it could have been. Now, before we begin, there's some important things I should mention about the timeline of this remake that would come across as clumsy if I used the story to exposit about them, so here's what you should know beforehand:

-This story takes place two years after Sonic Unleashed. Mania's true ending, the existence of Shadow androids in Heroes' Team Dark story, the entirety of Shadow the Hedgehog, Sonic 06 (it's technically already non-canon due to the game's ending, but you know what I mean), Colours, Generations, and Lost World didn't happen and are not to be considered "canon".

-The original three Genesis titles (along with CD and Mania) take place in the span of a year, with Sonic being 15, Tails being 8, Knuckles being 16, and Amy being 12. The Sonic Adventure titles take place four years after that, also within the span of around a year or so, and Heroes takes place months after the events of Adventure 2. Unleashed then takes place around two years after Heroes. If you're too lazy to do the math, the characters' ages in this story are as follows:

Sonic: 23
Tails: 16
Knuckles: 24
Amy: 20
Rouge: 22
Espio: 20
Vector: 24
Charmy: 10

Yes, I know: a more coherent timeline for the Sonic universe. Who would've thought, right? Well, going into the planning process for this, I felt that establishing a more solid timeline for said universe was important to emphasize that by the point in this story, the characters have really grown up through their past experiences, maturing them a bit more.

Alright, I'm done talking for now. Here we go!

"E-123 reporting in. Estimated arrival time to the Chemical Plant is two hours."

"We'll be right here if anything happens." Rouge kicked back in her seat with a relaxed sigh, crossing her legs and folding her hands behind her head while Shadow stood nearby, his gaze fixed blankly on the array of screens in front of them. "Wanting to go out there with him?" Rouge asked, to which the older hedgehog replied with a simple, indifferent hum. "Omega will be fine; besides, you've already trailblazed through so many of Eggman's old bases these past few weeks. You're allowed to give it a rest." Shadow briefly regarded her with a glance before continuing to look at the monitors; she knew he'd acknowledge her, even if he didn't express particularly strong agreement to what she said, so she wasn't bothered by his silence. He was more of a different character than Sonic and his friends, after all; not that he didn't cut loose, but Shadow simply chose to take things more seriously. That was who he was, that was who he always would be. She understood that well in the years she spent working with him and Omega after they met so long ago. So all in all, she'd grown used to the silence. Even though she still liked to wring a couple of words out of him every now and again.

"You know, you could go out and vacation with your old pal Sonic," Rouge suggested in a cheeky tone, redirecting Shadow's eyes back over to her. "I hear he's back to catching the sun in Green Hill nowadays."

"I doubt I'd last ten seconds listening to that nuisance's chatter," Shadow mumbled. "Maybe if his mouth didn't run as fast as his legs can..."

"Oh, you two love each other. Remember when we ran into them in that crazy jungle all that time ago?" The faintest hint of a smirk crept up on the corner of Shadow's mouth. "Hmph. His head wasn't in the game even for a second."

"What a fun time that was. And certainly not the last between you two, hm?" Shadow scoffed. "As if I could stop him from joining in whenever we ran into each other. He's probably been at odds with the doctor longer than any of us have."

"That, he has been." More silence followed as the two reminisced about the past, a nostalgic mood settling over them. In its midst, however, Shadow sobered up, becoming lost in his memories and his thoughts. "... Rouge."

"Hm?"

"He knows, right?" he asked, fully turning his body to look at her and dropping his folded arms from his chest. "Just like you do, about my past."

"That, he does..." the bat replied slowly. "But didn't you say it doesn't matter to you anymore?" Shadow nodded in confirmation. "And I trust it's with good intent, right?" Rouge's expression became almost exasperated at the question. "Shadow, you know that Sonic is the epitome of good intent. Besides... you've trusted me with not saying anything to you, right?"

"I don't know him like I know you."

"I'd say you know him well enough." Pausing for a moment, Rouge stood up from her chair, walking over to the hedgehog and placing her hands firmly against his shoulders. "Don't worry about it. You made a good decision to leave it behind you. It doesn't matter now. What matters now is knowing who you are." The two remained there for a bit, their gazes connected in growing solidarity with one another, and Shadow gave her a silent nod. Rouge smiled, and gave his shoulders a pat before withdrawing her arms. "You're a good person, Shadow. Even if you spend most of your time brooding." Shadow rolled his eyes and faced the monitors with his arms folded over his chest again, and Rouge returned to her seat next to him. He'd never admit it out loud, but she provided him with a comfort that just about no one else did.

"Systems check: all clear. Ready to proceed and eliminate all targets." The Chemical Plant had become a dormant place, its brilliant hues of blue and purple having dulled over time, its steel structures covered in thin sheets of snow and ice under the winter that befell it. The skies were cloudy and grey, diminishing the sunlight. Beyond a cool breeze and Omega's thrusters propelling him through the facility, there was nothing. The sound of rushing waters from days of old now ceased to be.

Eventually, the relative silence became filled with the sounds of gunfire and explosions; Omega had run into a platoon of Eggman robots, and made quick work of them. He leapt over to another tubular runway and thrust his bulky arm through a row of hostiles, returning fire with his left arm cannon at others some distance away. A simple, routine extermination. None posed a remote challenge to him. He circled the perimeter of the plant, wiping out more robots stationed outside its walls... then, after a few minutes, it ended. Omega kept on the move, scanning for other robots, but there were none. The skirmish ended quickly, a bit earlier than expected; it seemed as though there simply wasn't much defense left to watch over Eggman's remaining facilities.

"Exterior area: clear. Advancing toward the facility interior." The moment Omega made his move, something struck and blinded him, sending him crashing back towards the ground mid-flight and making him struggle to orient himself. His systems were going haywire, and through the static of his vision, it seemed as though the Chemical Plant was just... gone.

"Unidentified system intrusion detected; location unknown, unable to pinpoint intrusion source... Unidentified threat detected!"

"NNNN-Negative... Deee-De-Defeat is unacceptable, I will not y-y-yield, IIIIIII am EEEEE-12333333-"

"Omega?! Omega, come in!"

Omega's feed suddenly went dark, and communications with him were lost. For a yawning minute, there was no follow-up, no apparent recovery from Omega, and Shadow turned away from the monitors to make a curt exit from their base of operations. "I'm going after him."

"I'll provide backup," Rouge called out after him, getting out of her seat and following behind him. "I've got this covered on my own," Shadow insisted, but Rouge wasn't having it this time.

"If something managed to take Omega out, I imagine it's pretty serious. Besides... it's been a long time since the two of us have gone out on a mission, hasn't it?" Rouge tried a wink, but Shadow simply rolled his eyes.

"If it's still there and we can, we get rid of the threat ourselves; if not, we prioritize finding Omega and getting him out. Try not to fall behind."

Shadow flipped off the end of a rail and landed onto another, bending at the knees to accelerate further. Rouge flew closer to the plant, searching high and low for any signs of Omega. "Still don't see him here!" she called out to her partner, who replied, "He couldn't have gone far! His systems were knocked out before he could make it inside the plant. Keep looking!" Again, he flipped off the rail he was on, this time landing on a tube and skating smoothly along its surface. The timing of this, Shadow couldn't help but think, was incredibly suspicious. For two years, these had been simple clearings; the doctor was barely putting up a fight, and had seemingly gone missing since the world had been torn apart by a mysterious entity. But now, when it seemed like things might've been coming to a close, Omega vanished from the map in no time flat. That wasn't something that just happened to Eggman's strongest E-Series robot. Had he been spending all this time planning something big, letting everyone think he was throwing in the towel, and waiting for the right moment to strike...?

"Rouge. What've you got...?" Looking above and behind him, Shadow went cold and slid to a quick stop, beginning to frantically search his surroundings. Rouge wasn't there anymore, like she disappeared into thin air. How was that possible? Something was terribly amiss, and he didn't know what. The prospect that he wasn't in control of the situation put him on edge.

"Rouge?! Rouge!" His calls were answered with a deafening silence. He didn't have any other option except to investigate the inside of the plant, so he began to travel towards it, jumping through the steelwork and working almost in vain to maintain his composure. He couldn't waste any time here. Suddenly, after spinning off a handlebar along the way, a bright red flash struck him square in the chest and knocked him backward several feet, forcing him to use his limited-range Chaos Control and steady his landing onto a tube. Looking up with a grimace, he found himself face-to-face with his new foe, and as if to announce its presence, the cloudy skies above became coloured by a bright maroon sun. It was bizarre; the figure had a stature similar to Shadow's, but its presence and appearance were something of an otherworldly nature. He was honestly taken aback by it, even more so when the being laughed, and the air around him seemed to ripple from the sound of his voice.

"Who are you?! What have you done to Rouge?!"

"Haha... So here he stands. 'The world's ultimate life form'... or so he's been called." The figure's voice rang clear, proud and unbothered in its nature. It regarded the hedgehog with a single yellow eye, out from the left side of the apparent helmet it wore. "Shadow the Hedgehog... Yes, you'll do. You may no longer be this world's 'ultimate life form'... but you'll do!" The figure outstretched itself, unleashing what appeared to be a widespread blast that was punctuated by an ominous droning sound, and Shadow braced himself for the impending impact. Except, there was no impact. When he lowered his arm, he found- to his absolute bewilderment- that he was no longer at the Chemical Plant; instead, he was standing on an orange suspension bridge amidst a city under a night sky, filled with numerous twisting roads. He was somewhere he shouldn't have been, somewhere completely different from where he was just a moment ago, yet this place had a tinge of familiarity to it. Why had he been brought here? What was his new opponent playing at?

"I'm right here, Shadow." Snapping his head down to follow the voice, sure enough, he found the dark figure floating metres away, watching him. "Come and get me... if you can."

"... Hmph."

Stepping onto a suspension cable, Shadow began a rapid descent towards the ground and raced after his opponent, who phased out of existence. The hedgehog hurtled into a row of springs and ascended higher up to another road, curling into a ball when he hit the ground and shooting forward. He sped back down, then was launched up through a loop, landing onto another road and skating through its curves. He slid underneath what was essentially a giant metal rolling pin and kept going, making another descent, then using a spring to fly through the air. He landed against a steel beam, where he saw the figure again by the road below, and bolted straight towards him. The figure disappeared yet again, making Shadow growl under his breath, and jumped off the spring set in front of him to the platform above. Something was up there to greet him, but it wasn't the figure this time; instead, there was a tall robot already charging its arm cannon, and Shadow barely warped out of the firing path in time. He returned above the robot's head and crushed it with an axe kick, falling back down and examining the pieces that were left of it. He picked up one that had a symbol with a white 'G' emblazoned on it, and looking at it made his head feel like there were popping sparks milling about. The robot wasn't one of Eggman's, so what in the world...

"Yes; you remember, don't you? The Guardian Units of Nations. They hunted you down, wanted to be rid of you. And you... I imagine you must've hated them with a passion." Shadow looked around in frustration, trying to find out where Infinite was now. What was his game? Why was he toying with him like this? "... Hm. Maybe you don't remember after all," the figure mused. "Not yet at least. If you don't, then by the end of this trip, you will." Shadow caught a flicker to his left from the corner of his eye, quickly jumping above the red streak dashing at him and launching the scrap metal in his hand at it. The figure immediately batted it back toward the hedgehog, forcing him to kick it up and halt its horizontal momentum. The figure flew down to a street below, and Shadow followed behind him. Hitting the ground, Shadow waved outward with his left arm and cast Chaos Spear at his enemy, who merely glanced behind him and vanished to avoid the attack. Shadow huffed in annoyance and slid under a metal frame, riding a cable up and swinging himself into multiple springs mounted against an assortment of steel beams. He made his way down the road he arrived at, before abruptly falling through the air as part of said road vanished from underneath him in a haze of dark red cubes. He spun forward into a ball and forced his momentum straight down to stop himself from crashing into the wall in front of him, bouncing up off the platform below.

"Hahaha. Amazing, isn't it?" The droning noise from earlier came back and Shadow looked up to see a bed of spikes above him, boosting forward with his skates to narrowly get out of the way as it slammed down against where he was once standing. "There's so much I can do with the power at my fingertips." Four G.U.N. Hunters descended to the ground to his right, and Shadow grunted in defiance before taking them all out with a series of quick homing attacks. "I can create, and I can also destroy. Do you understand, Shadow?" The hedgehog stepped between two walls and began to jump between them, with sets of spikes emerging from them to catch him just as he'd jump off each one. "You're in a world of my making. One that looks very real to you." Once on the platform above, he was faced with a squad of G.U.N. Beetles, and again wasted no time in using his homing attack to cross over to the street on the other side. Shadow glided forward again, helped along by the occasional dash panel as he travelled through a downward loop and a spiral. He kept going, the road unending and the rockets on his shoes now carrying him along, with the figure appearing several feet away and keeping at a distance. "You were going to destroy the world. Everything would've been turned to nothing. What changed? How come you ultimately played a part in putting a stop to it?"

"I don't know what you're talking about," Shadow snarled, and the figure chuckled, adjusting its mask. "I suppose you must've hit the ground quite hard on the way back down to Earth. But it's still in there, I know it is. I can see the recognition in your eyes, the struggle to catch something that's just out of your reach." The hedgehog grit his teeth, his eyes starting to spark and his body lighting up with a sheen of red Chaos energy.

"You don't know the next thing about me."

"You're wrong. I had help from your precious old doctor, but I do know, Shadow. I do," the figure drawled in reply, seeming to slow his levitation speed and allow the hedgehog to come closer. "I know what you lost. I know what was taken away from you." Shadow pushed himself further, crashing into the figure and breaking him into fragments... and with him, the rest of the world around them. His surroundings distorted and shifted shape, and now he found himself moving down a curving hallway in outer space, miles away from Earth. His body returned to normal, his building energy dissipating as he came out of anger and fell back into confusion. It was the same thing as before: familiar, yet not. Why? What importance did these places have to him, if any at all?

"I'm going to make you relive what hurt you, Shadow," the figure threatened lowly as the hedgehog entered a larger space, populated with bodies of Artificial Chaos. "I'm going to remind you that life could have been paradise." He became filled with an almost inexplicable sense of urgency as he slid past laser fire and launched into metal headpieces, ducking and jumping out of lethal embraces from the creatures. He couldn't lose here; he had to hurry, find Rouge and Omega and get out of wherever he was, and warn Sonic and the others that something powerful was coming, something incredibly dangerous that wasn't to be trifled with. He raced through automatic doors, running up the side of a wall to avoid a pool of toxins below and casting Chaos Spear at another group of creatures ahead. He flew between platforms, destroying them all. The sound of shrieking static filled Shadow's ears, growing louder and louder as he advanced, making everything fuzzy as his body carried him through the motions; he saw the shape of the figure through the obscurity of his vision, and he spun into a ball to hit him with a homing attack...

And then he collided harshly into and bounced once in a tube of glass, collapsing to the ground with a rattled grunt. He was trapped, and when he attempted to use Chaos Control to get out, he found himself unable to. He didn't understand. He was just able to use the ability before, so why wasn't his body responding to him this time? Then he looked outside the capsule he was trapped in and found himself looking back at a young girl in a blue dress, smiling weakly at him as she leaned against a console. Shadow was frozen. Bit by bit, the fog in his mind cleared. Her memory appeared to him in his mind, clear as day. Her blonde hair, her blue eyes...

It had been so long since he'd seen her.

"... Maria?" the hedgehog murmured, his voice shakier than it'd ever been.

"Shadow, I beg of you, please do it for me... for a better future." No, this couldn't be happening. Not again. In seconds, Shadow became swallowed whole by an emotion that had eluded him for so many years since this very moment: fear. Pounding on the glass, he shouted, "No! Maria, let me out of here! I can save you! MARIA!"

"For all people who live on that planet... give them a chance to be happy."

"I CAN SAVE YOU! MARIA, DON'T DO THIS!"

"Let them live for their dreams. I know you can do it. That's the reason you were brought into this world. Sayonara, Shadow... the Hedgehog."

"NO!"

And just like that, she was gone, and he was plunging through space, back towards Earth. Shadow clawed at the capsule, screaming and crying out in a desperate attempt to return to her, then limply fell back against the capsule, defeated and mortified by what he witnessed. It all came flooding back to him: his reawakening five decades after that day, his pledge to bring vengeance to humanity at large, his very first run-ins with Sonic, Amy's reminder that what Maria wanted him to promise was to bring peace to humanity... and the sacrifice he made to fulfill it. All before he was reawakened once more, with no memory of who he was.

"Do you remember, now?" the figure asked, his voice heard above the dull roar of the capsule's re-entry flames. "Do you see it again, what was lurking beneath the surface of your mind? It's always been there. You could never truly forget it." Slowly, Shadow's surroundings began to fade away and formed back into the snowy Chemical Plant, the figure floating in front of him with a damaged Omega in one hand and a barely conscious Rouge in the other. He dropped the now-dysfunctional Omega to the ground without sparing him a glance, his gaze locked on Shadow the entire time. The hedgehog was so disturbed that he couldn't react at all to the fact that he'd been here the whole time, that everything he just experienced was a complex illusion. He could do nothing but sit there, thinking about the past he thought he left behind him... thinking about Maria.

"No one deserves your kindness, Shadow. I want you to take this new chance to make the world pay for its sins. Together, we'll change everything. Now, I want to make sure you cooperate, so... I'll be keeping this little bat with us while you do. Don't think too much of it."

"Shadow..." Rouge mumbled weakly. "Don't... do it..." Shadow remained quiet for a long time, his eyes devoid of light; eventually, he looked up at the figure and asked again, "Who are you...?" The figure himself was silent for a few moments, then answered,

"Call me... Infinite."