Boulevard of Broken Dreams
Prologue
"Oh oh oh oh oh oh oh!" a maniacal laugh echoed through the iron base: "I finally caught you, Sonic!" Eggman looked satisfied at the hedgehog he managed to trap, thanks to his new robots powered by Chaos Energy and specialized in track movements.
"With your feet chained you won't be able to free yourself and run away like you always do!" he got closer to his prey on board of his Eggpod.
"Sorry to disappoint you, doctor..." Eggman's eyes grew wide when he heard the hedgehog's voice "But I fear you didn't catch SONIC." The prisoner was a black hedgehog with crimson red stripes, it was Shadow.
"YOU!" The doctor slammed his fist on his flying machine. "Yes, me. Ah, if you want to know, at this time Sonic surely already took your Chaos Emeralds; after all, you moved all your robots to trap me." In the hedgehog's voice could be heard a hint of disturbing irony. Eggman growled but the other didn't care so much: "Well, it doesn't matter if you aren't Sonic! I can make my experiment on you!"
"Experiment?" The doctor grinned satisfied and pushed a red button. A trap-hole opened on the floor and some kind of small laser emerged from it; Eggman started to laugh and Shadow wondered what the hell was on that crazy man's mind.
The tall man got out from the Eggpod and went to the laser's commands. "If you think that this will be enough to scare me you are very wrong!" the hedgehog tried to dissuade him but Eggman didn't mind him.
All of a sudden, to the other side of the room, a Spin Dash destroyed a metallic door and Sonic came in: "Hey, Shads! Why're you taking so long?" The cocky grin of the blue hedgehog disappeared when he realized what was going on "What the-?"
"Too late!" laughed the doctor; Sonic dashed towards Shadow but Eggman had already pressed the button and it was impossible to stop the laser from hitting the black hedgehog.
He was invested by the ray and his eyes grew wide: his head was spinning so much that he thought he was going crazy, his body became numb and he didn't even notice he had hit the metallic floor; his sight was blurred and the sounds were now confused, he couldn't recognize Sonic's worried voice calling his name or the maniacal laugh that was coming from Eggman. Shadow felt his mind was slipping away from his body while his eyelids suddenly felt heavier. His eyes slowly closed and he slipped into darkness.
"Shadow! Shadow answer me!" Sonic shook the black hedgehog but without any answer, he saw that his rival was starting to close his eyes and he started to panic: "Come on Shadow! Look at me!" Shadow was now unconscious or was he-?
"What did you do to him!?" The cobalt hedgehog's despair exploded directly on Eggman who was threatening him with his laser.
"Don't worry, he isn't dead. What's the sense in making experiments on a dead organism?"
"How can you make experiments on a person!?"
"Come on, Sonic. You know very well that Shadow is an artificial being."
"But he has FEELINGS! A life and a mind on his own! He isn't different from me or even you!" Sonic's fur began to change color: from a light blue to a dark one, nearly black. The doctor noticed and immediately understood what was about to happen: "Hey hey! Don't tell me you want to turn into Dark Sonic here! You could hurt your friend while you destroy everything! And I decided to leave him to you. I wanted to keep Shadow here to study him but you can keep him instead!" he began to slowly draw back and pressed a button which opened a door that probably guided to an exit. Sonic reflected on the possibility to hurt Shadow and so he stopped his transformation, he took the ebony hedgehog in his arms and was about to leave when the old man stopped him: "Can I suggest you to keep him in a warm place? He is in a state of suspended animation where the mind is separated from the body. If something was to happen to one of the two, the other part would be damaged too; if the damage was too much his mind could not find its way back to the body." Sonic's emerald eyes met Eggman's for a moment and he seemed worried.
"At Knothole we have very good scientists and doctors." Was all the hedgehog replied before leaving for the village.
It's finally done. So this is my first fanfic EVER. It's my first time uploading and I'm just nervous. I know this is very short but it's just the prologue, next chapters will be longer. Well, thanks for reading.
Al characters © to SEGA/Sonic Team
