Prologue

"Maria... this is what you wanted, right...?"Shadow whimpered under his breath as he plummeted towards the blue planet below, tears forming in his eyes. "This is my promise I made to you..."

There was nothing more he had to do. The dark hedgehog had completed his life's mission, and he could finally drift off into the comforting arms of death and rest in peace... that is, if he could die.

Well, of course Shadow wouldn't live through it. Nothing would. It made absolutely no sense, right? ...But, come to think of it, nothing really made sense anymore. Everything Shadow had experienced through the recent days past made no sense at all; the possibility of fake memories, the fake emerald, the blue hedgehog, everything... But that didn't matter now. Nothing mattered anymore, and that was that-

Shadow gasped and cried out at the feel of the friction burning away at his skin, like the queezy feeling you get when you scratch your nails against a chalkboard. The feeling that makes one's stomach churn for what seems like forever. It was so unbearable, but the dark hedgehog simply closed his eyes and took a deep breath.

It will all be over soon, he reassured himself, tears of blood now running down his searing red cheeks. Yes, it will all be over soon...

The friction continued growing more and more, the pain growing with it. Shadow could only open his eyes just slightly, and all he saw were flames. Burning red flames, red like blood... blood of all the innocents that had been spilled that night over 50 years ago...

No! Don't think about that, he screamed mentally. It will only make things worse!

Then everything went black. The flames were gone, the pain had ceased, and nothing mattered anymore. He was at peace...

Crystal sighed softly as she leaned against a pine tree in her front yard, her faithful chao Francois sitting on her lap and eating a cookie. Life in the mountains was usually quiet and peaceful, but now it was getting to be boring. The lake had been frozen for weeks, all trees except the pines were completely bare, and plain, white snow covered the ground.

The freezing cold didn't bother the albino furred hedgehog, though. She was used to it, and had been for all her life. In fact, she found it very refreshing to sit in the snow on a cold winter day and just relax. You see, Crystal was born in a small hedgehog village not too far away, and curiously enough they all had snowy white fur and sapphire blue eyes; every single one of them.
Being the runt of the children in the village, she was constantly picked on and teased because she always stood half as high as the others. She was very tiny, and very vulnerable, but somehow made it through without many problems. However, even when she grew to adulthood, the others would still tease her because she stood half as high as everybody else. It eventually got so bad that some of them would try pushing her off of the cliff that the village stood over and into the icy chasm below. Barely escaping with her life when that happened, she quickly left for a safe home by herself, not even bothering to say goodbye to her friends and loved ones. Crystal now lived alone just a few hundred miles from a mountain climbing trail, and intended to keep it that way-

BOOM!

Crystal jerked forward at the sound of an explosion as the ground shook mercilessly, sending Francois flying from her lap and into the freezing snow.

"What's going on!"the little brown chao squealed as he poked his head out of the snow, shivering from the cold.

Not even bothering to answer, Crystal dove for her small companion, curled up around him with her spines sticking out in all directions and stayed there, trees falling all around them. She could only listen and hope nothing would fall on them, but the quaking stopped almost as fast as it had begun. All was silent...

...Is it over already? Crystal wondered to herself as she slowly uncurled and looked around, everything covered in ash, including herself.

"I'm scared..."Francois cried as he clung to Crystal's shirt, trembling in fear.

Crystal could only hug the terrified little chao, completely speechless and unable to provide any verbal comfort as her mind twisted with questions.

After a few minutes of dusting off and relaxing, the albino hedgehog was able to speak, but did not. She simply got up and walked through the grey stained snow to the source of the explosion. What could that have been? Crystal asked herself. How did it happen? Who caused it?

The rocks were very slippery as Crystal climbed down to the bottom of the ravine, especially with now black snow covering them, but she was used to it. Slippery rock climbing was always fun, no matter how dangerous. The extra fun part of it this time was that she was looking for something, and she wouldn’t stop till she found it.

Finally, she made it to the bottom. It was freezing, even enough to make the albino hedgehog shiver, the snow was black as night, and dust and smoke was blocking out the sun. The only sounds were that of the wind blowing faintly... and a voice. The softest of voices that flowed like fresh spring water, yet so strong and rough like the rocks on the walls of the ravine; nothing like Crystal had ever heard.

Finally able to gather the courage to speak, Crystal called out, "HELLO? IS ANYBODY THERE?"

The only response was a soft groan from the same voice.

She quickly ran to the voice, not wasting any time and looked around. At first she saw nothing, but she then saw something move in the dust. Crystal cautiously crept towards it, and saw it move again. She backed up a bit, but then resumed approaching, and she saw it.

An ebony black hedgehog, with crimson red stripes on his spines and blood stains all over his body, patches of bare skin everywhere on his face, and his muzzle charred black.

TBC...