Title: Altered Reality

Summary: Dr. Eggman altered reality. Here, in this reality, Sonic's position in history was taken by Shadow. Nobody knows him. Well, except Shadow, who himself doesn't like this change at all...

Disclaimer: I don't own Sonic the Hedgehog or any related characters.

"You thought I won't catch you, Eggman? You can't outrun the fastest thing alive!" said Sonic, blocking the escapist path of Doctor, which right now looked quite ragged, because his flying vehicle had exploded(with him in it) when the blue hedgehog crashed into it.

Yeah, outrunning fastest thing alive was impossible task for him.

"Well, then let me reward you for this success." He took out the gun, he had hidden under his coat previously and immediately pointed it at surprised hedgehog's forehead.

He can't outrun him, but he surely can outsmart him.

"Say cheese!" said Eggman cheerfully, his fingers pressing the release of the gun.

The blue hedgehog immediately started to dodge, his super-fast instincts kicking in. The bullet flew past him, bringing triumphal smile to Sonic's lips, which disappeared moment later, because the bullet exploded into a wave of blinding blue light.

He instinctively shut his eyes, but opened them a moment later, when sound of running traffic hit his ears.

He confusedly stared at the suddenly busy street. Where did Eggman go? Where all the collapsed buildings disappeared to? Why are those people acting like if there wasn't attack from Eggman just few minutes ago? Why are there no fans running to greet him? What on Mobius is happening?!

He started to walk, cautious in his steps. He examined the people and the street, it looked just like before the attack. But there were not even small signs of any Eggman's attack, like damaged buildings or road. Suddenly his eyes caught a glimpse of group of teens before the shop window watching a televisions that were in it.

He zipped across the street, receiving few strange stares and rude gestures from the drivers. But he ignored both of them as he was more interested in finding out what was happening.

And as his sight fell on the TV and his ears caught the news-reporter's words, his eyes widened in shock. "-and that's how our loved hero Shadow the Hedgehog saved our city once again from the evil Doctor Robotnik."

Loved? Hero? And Shadow? All in one sentence? What the-?!

The news-reporter continued. "Just now, we got an information from Shadow's friends, Miles Prower and Knuckles the Echidna," Sonic's eyes were the size of sauce-pans right now, "that Doctor Robotnik was successfully arrested after this incident and at this very time he's being taken to a prison."

The teens that had been watching the reportage started to loudly discuss, which made Sonic hoping that this is just some terrible nightmare.

"Shadow is amazing!"

"He's so cool!"

"Do you remember that time he destroyed the Death Egg?"

"Yeah! And that time when he repaired the planet, when it had split!"

"Did you heard that rumor about that pink hedgehog that's always with him? I heard it's his girl-friend!"

This can't be happening...This has to be a cruel joke...

The teens started to talk even louder and mentioned much more of his successes against Eggman. However, all of them claimed it was Shadow's work.

My life...isn't mine...?

"Excuse me, miss..." Sonic patted one of the teens on her shoulder. She turned around and so did the rest of group, when they noticed she stopped talking.

When she saw him, she immediately crossed her arms and flinched from his touch. Her smile fell and was replaced by disgusted expression. "Go away from me, you disgusting homeless man!"

A homeless man...? What...?

The rest of the group laughed and all of them started to walk away, completely ignoring the blue hedgehog. Sonic just stand there, looking himself over. He was little dirty and ragged, but that was from all that fighting he went trough when fighting Eggman's robots. But that wouldn't cause them to don't recognize him.

But still...They haven't recognized him. They thought Shadow is him. Why would that happen...?

And then the memory of blue light flashed through his mind.

His fists immediately clenched. This was Eggman's work.

-O-

Doctor Robotnik was laying in his bed in the silence of his cell, completely bored out of his mind. They wouldn't let him from his cell. He couldn't go even to dining room, because they were scared that he could though up some sort of genial plan how to escape if they let him go there. He even had his own guards before his cell. He was a mastermind and they acknowledged this fact.

Which brought lot of problems, because they wouldn't let him have a book even. They even removed the second bed, so he wouldn't try to use some of its part for escape.

He was angry. His own was small for him so second bed would be nice and it was a just bed for Chaos's sake! What part of it he could use to make an escape plan? The mattress?

Now, when he though about it...that actually wasn't bad idea. If it was a one with springs...

But his planning of escape was suddenly interrupted by alarm going on in the prison.

"Intruder in the A-2 sector! Stop him by all costs! Repeat! Intruder..."

Doctor raised his brow. This was supposed to be one of the best guarded prisons, how could anybody got through?

He peeked out of his cell and looked into the corridor. There was cloud of dust on the end of it. Wait, is the cloud moving...?

The cloud stopped before his cell and angry blue hedgehog stepped out of it. He pointed at Robotnik and started to speak in angry voice. "Eggman! What the heck did you do to me?!"

Doctor frowned. "Why do you call me an Eggman?! I'm Dr. Ivo Robotnik, the biggest genius who ever lived!"

Sonic crossed his arms. "Call yourself whatever you want! You won't avoid the question! What did you do?!"

Robotnik's frowned deeper. "I don't know what you're talking about. What was I supposed to do?"

The blue hedgehog's temper was rising. "Don't pretend innocent! Why doesn't anybody remember me?!"

Where were the guards when he needed them? "I don't remember you either, hedgehog."

Sonic gritted his teeth and in blink of eye he was standing right before Eggman, whose collar he immediately took hold of. "Don't mess with me, doctor! I want answers! Now!"

Doctor looked into the raging green eyes of the hedgehog before him. He really didn't know that hedgehog. "I can't have the answers you seek for when I don't even know who you are!"

Green eyes looked at him and then something in them broke. Sonic let go of his collar and Robotnik immediately straightened his back. "You're not...lying."

The blue hedgehog experienced lying Doctor so many times. However, this wasn't one of them.

"You don't know who am I?"

"No, I never saw you in my life."

"Who's your biggest enemy?"

"Excuse me?"

"Just answer."

"Shadow the Hedgehog, of course."

"I see..."

Doctor blinked when he saw how the blue hedgehog started to slowly walk away. The guards were getting closer, he could hear it. "What was all of this about?"

"You made everybody forget me, even yourself."

"And who are you?"

"Sonic the Hedgehog."

"Should I know you?"

"Everybody should know me." He turned around, sad expression on his face. "But nobody does."

And with that he set off to find his last chance, his brother.

-O-

Tails experienced many things in his life. It was short life, just 10 years, but after the numerous fights with Robotnik he would expect he would know how to defend himself.

However, when that crazy blue hedgehog that claimed to be his brother (in both meanings of the phrase), he had not idea what to do.

"Please, Tails, listen to me!"

"No! Go away!" He threw another tool on him, unfortunately for him the hedgehog dodged.

"Doctor messed the reality! You don't remember me, but I'm your brother! For some reason Shadow lives my life, but it's my life in reality!"

The fox threw an hammer on him. But Sonic dodged again. "You're not my brother!...Brother, please help!"

The blue hedgehog turned around and was met with no other than Shadow himself alongside with Knuckles.

Sonic attention immediately moved from his brother to his rival. "You! You stole my life!"

The dark hedgehog raised his eye-ridge. "Why would I do that? Having bunch of friends and stalker that follows me everywhere? Not something I would appreciate."

"You-Wait, what?" The blue hedgehog stared at the other hedgehog before him. Shadow smirked. "Yeah, nice to see you too, faker."

"You remember me!"

"Of course, I do."

"What! You know this madman?!" screamed Tails, pointing at the blue hedgehog.

"Hey! I'm not an madman!"

"Ignore it, faker. I tried to convince them I'm not you. They just won't listen."

"What the heck are you two talking about?" Knuckles cut in, obviously having enough of just standing around.

"Doctor Egg-I mean Robotnik somehow messed up the reality. Everybody thinks he's me," explained Sonic, pointing at Shadow.

Knuckles raised an eye-ridge. "And you are?"

Sonic frowned. "Sonic the Hedgehog."

"I don't know you."

"Nobody knows him," said Shadow. "However, he's saying the truth."

Tails raised an eye-ridge, looking from one hedgehog to the other. "What do you mean by that?"

"Everything you think I had done and the relationship you think we have, it was his work. I'm no hero and I'm not your brother."

"But...who are you then?"

"Project gone wrong, an agent of GUN, the anti-hero. Chose whatever you want."

Knuckles looked at him suspiciously. "That sounds like a bad guy to me."

"Yeah, that's why I found it ridiculous that I'm supposed to be the hero," he looked at his blue rival, which right now was staring somewhere into a space, obviously deep in thought. „Something on your mind?"

"If you are me...how did the Eclipse cannon incident, went? You know...you working with doctor..."

Before the dark hedgehog could even start to talk, Tails already started to explain. "Shadow working with doctor? What a nonsense! That guy working with him was...ehm..."

Shadow turned to look at Sonic. "Well, as it seems I filled your place in the history, but nobody filled mine..."

"But how are we going to fix this mess?"

"How do you even know this is Doctor's work?"

"Well, I wanted to stop him from escaping. He tried to shot me with some strange gun. I dodged , but the bullet exploded into a light and then everything was wrong..."

"We will probably need Doctor's help then."

"I don't believe we can convince him..."

"Oh, believe me, I can be very convincing..."

-O-

"You didn't need to be so violent!" Sonic glared at his rival, obviously not approving his convincing methods.

"He wouldn't help us if I wasn't," stated Shadow, didn't giving a damn about what the other hedgehog think of him.

Tails coughed, interrupting their talk. Both hedgehog turned from glaring at each other to stare at the small fox. "I just wanted to inform you, about the fact that we found out how to fix this. However, it will take some time."

"Good. But if you had any problem with Doctor just tell me."

"No violence! You're ruining my image!"

"You can't order me."

"Yeah, nobody can order my Shadowie!"

The dark hedgehog froze at hearing that too familiar, very loud voice of the pink hedgehog. "Chaos no!"

"Hey, Shadowie! Missed me?" she immediately hugged the dark hedgehog, who right now looked like he wanted to kill somebody.

Very slowly and very painfully.

"Get. Off. Me."

Amy let go of him but then patted his shoulder reassuringly. "No need to be shy about showing affection towards your girl-friend, Shadowie."

"You're not my girl-friend," he hissed under his breath, frowning. But his frown disappeared a moment later and turned into a cruel smirk. "And I'll tell you why."

Amy looked at him, confusion on her face. Shadow placed his arms on her shoulders, pretending to reassure her. "You see, you can't be my girl-friend, because..."

The pink hedgehog stared at him, question written all over her face.

"I am gay."

You could practically hear Sonic's jaw hitting the ground.

"You're...gay?"

Shadow nodded and then he looked her straight into her eyes and started to speak again. „But I would appreciate if you don't tell anybody."

"You can count on me!" She widely smiled and clapped her hands.

"Amy!" She turned around, where Tails was waving at her. She turned back and smiled even a wider smile. "I'll go say 'hi' to Tails. See you later!"

Then she was gone.

"It'll be in every newspapers in the city by tomorrow."

"I know."

"You're just trying to ruin me, aren't you?"

"Maybe."

"I hate you."

"The same to you."

"Hey, guys, we finished it!"

"That was fast."

"As expected from two biggest geniuses of the planet..."

-O-

"What?! Why haven't it worked?!"

Sonic opened his eyes. Am I back?

His sight fell on ragged Doctor Eggman and all those collapsed buildings around them. "Yes! I'm back!"

"What?"

"Hey, Sonic! Are you alright? We saw strange light coming from here!" Suddenly Tails and Knuckles appeared, both unconsciously making the hedgehog happy by just saying his name.

"If you remember me, then everything is alright, Tails!"

"...Am I supposed to take it as yes?"

-O-

"So, they don't remember anything?" asked Shadow, taking a sip from his cup of coffee.

"No," answered Sonic and as well took a sip from his drink. „But how it come you remember it?"

"I don't have an idea. Ask your brother, he may know why we were the only two unaffected. But I have a better question: How the heck did I get here?"

The blue hedgehog looked down into his cup, laughing awkwardly. "You see...Amy was so happy that nothing happened to me, that she hugged me and refused to let go of me..."

Shadow raised an eye-ridge. Why was that information important? "Go on..."

"So, I decided to try out the same trick you used..."

The dark hedgehog started to be curious.

"She asked me how I can be so sure. So I told her that I like somebody. Then she asked me who and I said the first name that came to my mind..."

"...We are on a date, aren't we?"

"I'm sorry! I didn't expected her to play matchmaker!"

Shadow took the last sip and then placed the now empty cup on the table. "And you were worried about your reputation..."

Sonic kept silent.

"But that still haven't answered my question why I don't remember going here..."

AN: Reviews appreciated.