Summary
Shadow The Hedgehog may be the Ultimate Lifeform, but he, like everyone else, is dependent on Chaos. But when suddenly, Chaos, all around the world, begins to die. It is left up to him to save the world and gets help, from a very unexpected and somewhat supernatural ally.
Chapter Contents
Chapter One – Chaos
Chapter Two – Tragedy
Chapter Three – Saviour
Chapter Four – Artificial
Chapter Five – Eclipse
Chapter Six – Emeralds
Chapter Seven – Loyalties
Chapter Eight – Sacrifice
Chapter Nine – Eggman
Chapter Ten – Beginnings
Chapter One – Chaos
Chaos. It is the energy created by all living things. Great respect are afforded the those who can wield it. Despite that, all life was also dependant on it, to some degree. The more powerful you were with Chaos, the more you life depended on it.
Nobody understood this more, then Shadow The Hedgehog.
Created at a time, when little was known about Chaos, by a species that knew even less. Humans. On a space station orbiting their planet, Earth, not Mobius, where it now currently lies. Shadow laid back his chair, where he was currently sat, and thought. A lot had happened since then. He had left Earth far behind, and moving his home, the Ark, here, settling around this new planet. But that happened a long time ago, not long after his awakening. When Eggman awoke him from his slumber, he nearly destroyed Earth, and would have succeed if it wasn't for that irritating Blue Hedgehog. As a result the Ark, got transported here, with Chaos Control, to the orbit of Mobius, where it has remained ever since.
Adjusting to life down on the planet below, took some time. He also had he own freedoms and choices to deal with, something he has never had to do before.
But he also wasn't very welcome. The people of Mobius didn't want him, upon hearing of what Shadow nearly did to Earth and it had taken years to slowly gaining their trust, certainly enough to travel the planet unhindered.
Despite that, he liked Mobius as a whole, it had a lot to offer both legal and illegally, which suited someone like him, perfectly. Even so, Shadow always found himself always returning to the Ark. It was his home, he was created here.
Shadow put his head on his hand and sighed. He was sat, alone, at the main Console of the Ark watching the monitors ahead of him. More then a dozen screens, all showing him at once, all aspects of life down on the planet. He monitored everything. With all the screens working at once, he was more then capable of keeping up, his brain was easily fast enough.
They showed Eggman mostly but he also had his hand in watching that irritating Blue Hedgehog as well. Shadow eyes fell on the screen watching Tails' House. All was quiet. No one to be seen.
The Blue Blur intrigued him. Shadow found him incredibly irritating and yet, he kept getting curious about him. There was something about him that made him more different then your usual Sapient. Well, Chaos-Sapient, anyway. Shadow and the others, the Sapients, fell into two categories, those who could wield Chaos and those who could not. A Chaos-Sapient was someone with any kind of Chaos-Based power, be it, Chaos-Strength, Super-Speed, Heighten Awareness, or even Psychokinesis, in Silver's case. Tails, whom Shadow considered as knowledgable as himself on Chaos was not a Chaos-Sapient, he knew everything about Chaos but he just couldn't wield it. Those powers tended to be from birth, and Chaos-Sapients where known to the Authorities and often ranked by a Chaos Power Level. The higher the level, the more powerful you were with Chaos.
Shadow, of course, was top of the list, at Level Nine. He could wield more Chaos, in more ways then anyone. But there were many others on the list, not far behind him, mainly the Blue Blur at Level Eight. How that annoying speedster made it to Level Eight, Shadow didn't know. Vector, Big the Cat and of course, Knuckles, were some names he knew. Silver was on there to for his mental abilities, as well as himself and Sonic. Shadow noticed one significant thing about the list. All named upon it, all had Chaos-Strength including himself, except for Sonic and Silver. Not including Silver, Sonic was the only person with a physical Chaos ability on the list without Chaos-Strength. This, Shadow found, to be very strange.
Without Chaos-Strength, how did the Blue Hedgehog survive the incredible acceleration forces asserted on him when using Super-Speed? As far as Shadow knew, you needed incredible strength to withstand such forces. Therefore, how was he even alive? That was one question Shadow had about Sonic, another was his Chaos generation. OK, all Sapients generate Chaos, but the amount per person was normally minuscule, but collectively, everyone generated enough Chaos to feed the entire planet.
Shadow could see it. The Chaos. The only person on the planet who could, without a specialist device. The normally invisible energy emanated in a range of colours from each sapient, of which to Shadow, created an Aura around each of them. That was another reason why he liked the planet, the colours. But Sonic was different. He generated so much Chaos that he shone, to Shadow, as brightly as the Sun. The brilliant white light took some getting used to, and it took Shadow some time to realise that he and he alone could see it, especially when they first met.
Shadow smirked to himself, in his thoughts. It was the reason why the annoying Blue Blur could never sneak up on him, not with a beacon like that, despite several attempts. Shadow never told him, and had no intention too either.
But how? How was Sonic able to generate so much Chaos? Shadow leaned forwards onto the Console desk, put his head in his hand, and sighed again. There was a good chance that even Sonic himself didn't know. He'd just always been that way.
Strange.
Shadow did admit to one thing to himself, he did enjoy being in Sonic's company, despite the irritation. For two main reasons, one, he was way to easy to bully, falling for it every time, and two, his Chaos generation. When it came to Chaos, Shadow and Sonic were complete order to survive, Shadow consumed Chaos, large quantilesof it. He couldn't generate it for himself, the only living thing on Mobius that didn't. But he feed off Chaos Energy like no other creature in the planet. He barely needed to eat, drink or sleep because of it. As an immortal, Shadow could survive absolutely anything so long as he had access to Chaos. Without it, he was nothing. So if Shadow went to an area that had low Chaos, he would become weak and potentially pass out relatively quickly, never to wake. It had nearly happened several times over the years, as the spread of Chaos around the planet was very uneven.
But hanging around Sonic, he never had that problem. Sonic seemed to generate Chaos as fast as Shadow consumed it and therefore he never went 'hungry' around him.
Shadow closed his eyes. The answers about his Blue counterpart were not coming any time soon, so he moved on. He was bored. Today was a slow day. A very slow day. He leaned back in his chair and stretched. His large sleek black body lengthening, outstretching his white gloved fingers, and twisting his wrists, his gold rings upon them, shining. His long red stripes down both his arms and legs, glistenedin the lights of the Ark, his black upturned quills with their magnificent red stripes, on his head and flowing down his back behind him. His white chest fur looking somewhat rough in this late hour of the day. He opened his eyes, his deep crimson iris', glowing red occasionally as the Chaos Darkness within him took hold. He let it, he had no reason to stop it.
Chaos, when generated, is pure, it is neither Light nor Dark. It becomes Light or Dark depending on the user, the person wielding it. Most Chaos-Sapients were Chaos Light, Shadow was Chaos Dark, and he loved it. He loved nothing more then to be a creature of Darkness, to be different, to be evil. He was created as a creature of Darkness, why should he change? He may not fight for the bad guys anymore, but he is still a 'bad guy'. Hence the bullying. Anything to get one over that Blue idiot.
But Shadow sighed. He thought about that the Blue Blur again and how he'd completely misjudged him, when they first met. Shadow thought he was a total push over, when first started regularly working together. Back when Shadow first joined the 'good' guys. He wanted to push the Blue Hedgehog, find out just how far he'd go. The answer was, very, but Shadow completely underestimated him. He'd heard stories about his infamous temper but never believed it, let alone witness it first-hand. Very few people had. The Blue Blur lost his temper so rarely, until that fateful day.
He didn't just loose his temper, he completely changed. When Shadow looses his temper, he just gets more evil and more violent, but this was different. His Blue counterpart would change, the Chaos within him, would turn from Light to Dark. But not just any Dark Chaos, the purest Shadow ever seen, creating malice so cold that even he feared it. He never believed he was capable of such Darkness. He physically changed as well, turning completely black, his quills elongating and turning upwards and his eyes had no pupils or irises. His skin is a dark grey colour, a dark Blue aura around him.
Way out of his league, Shadow was forced to ask for help as he couldn't contain the extreme temper alone. It took the extraordinarycooperative effort of both Tails and Eggman to finally calm the Blue Blur. Leaving Shadow with a deep respect for him, despite his idiotic nature. Shadow also had to promise to never ever push him that far again, something he's kept to this very day. As a result, Shadow never underestimates the Blue Hedgehog for, well, anything and is, now, very careful around him. He can still have his fun, though, especially nowadays, considering how well he knows the Blue Blur. But it has taken years.
Shadow shook himself, his mind was wondering again. Time to get back to what he came to the Ark's main Console to research.
The Source.
He had been doing some serious calculations in recent months. For the simple reason, that something didn't feel right. That Chaos wasn't balanced. Shadow was that sensitive to such things and it drove him mad. So he calculated the amount of Chaos that each living thing generated verses the amount of Chaos available on the planet. It didn't match. He was right. Even with Sonic's overactive Chaos generation, it still didn't match. There was far more Chaos available on the planet then could be generated by all the lifeforms living upon it. So, where did it extra come from? This surplus Chaos was an incredibly vast quantity, and if it was to disappear, it would properly take the rest of Chaos with it.
Shadow feared that, more then anything. It was his only fear. The death of all Chaos. With it, it would mean the end of him, and potentially all life on Mobius. He was going to be dammed if he was going to let that happen. Shadow very much liked to have full control of everything, and very much wanted to get to the bottom of this mystery.
So, he had been searching for it. The Source of this excess Chaos. It had to have been generated somewhere. Chaos Energy doesn't just appear out of thin air. Shadow did have the thought that it might be created artificially, but found no evidence to that fact.
Shadow was very frustrated and very bored. Months of searching and nothing. Hence his mind kept wondering.
'Could the planet itself create it?' He randomly thought. Shadow mentally slapped himself, for thinking of such a stupid suggestion. Only 'living' creatures create Chaos, the planet was bare rock and earth, nothing more. But that thought, gave Shadow a lightbulb moment. He'd been looking in completely the wrong place. For such a large quantity of Chaos, Shadow had got it into his head, that it must be some kind of factory creating it. He throw that idea out, that was very much Eggman's influence. Maybe it was simpler, because all life depended on Chaos and all Chaos depended on life.
'Therefore..' Shadow thought. 'The Source must be something living.' He mulled it over in his head. But it didn't make sense. As far as he knew, Sonic generated the most Chaos of anyone he knew, but nowhere near enough to meet the surplus. So what else? He rubbed his eyes, it was getting late.
'Come on!' He thought, frustrated again. 'Think!' He fumed.
If the Source was a living creature, then what could it be?
'Or who?' He thought again. 'And how was it generating such Chaos?' He added.
Shadow screwed his eyes up, desperate to think, bringing together all of the knowledge he'd ever acquired on Chaos into something that made sense.
Then it hit him, hard.
So hard, in fact, that it caused him to sit bolt upright, both frightened and stunned.
The Source, he knew what it was, and it did indeed frighten him. This seriously shook Shadow up. Fright was not an emotion he was not used to. But if what he had just realised turned out to be true, then death to them all.
The Source was indeed a living creature, but whose powers didn't generate the Chaos like Sonic's but their very Life-Force did. Simply being alive was enough the generate the Chaos. The Source didn't need to be a Chaos-Sapient, they could be just an ordinary person going about their business, never knowing the truth.
That meant that it could be literally, anyone and Shadow would have no way of knowing, either. Even though it was the Life-Force that generated the Chaos, it remained very much hidden. He could detect Chaos, but never a person's Life-Force.
But what really got to Shadow, was the fact if the Source was to die, then it would potentially take all Chaos with it. But this seriously confused the Black Hedgehog.
'What would Chaos put all of it eggs in one basket like that?' He thought. He didn't understand. But then Shadow got the impression that Chaos never meant to. Thinking back to what he knew about the history of Chaos on Mobius, and the creation of the Chaos Emeralds, he realised that, in the past, there must have been multiple bloodlines involved. Whose Life-Forces generated the Chaos. But with Mobius' various wars and purges over the generations, Chaos was now down to just one last survivor.
The Source.
But who was he? Or she? And was he even a hundred percent sure it was just one, there could be others. Shadow didn't know, and prayed that there were others, but he had no way of knowing, but his instincts kept telling him he was properly dealing with just one.
And who were these bloodlines? Shadow had no clue. Nothing in the history of Chaos, named any names, plus it would been in these families best interests to stay hidden. Any chances of finding any leads here were zero.
Shadow looked back to the screens ahead of him, monitoring the planet below. Death hadn't found the Source yet, but Shadow, being immortal, knew it was simply a matter of time. The Source was mortal, their born, they live, they die, that's the rules.
'Unless they breed.' Shadow smirked to himself, but then tried to get the rather grotesque image out of his head. To think that his fate relied on some punk mortal breeding, was more then he could stand. He growled.
'There had better be more!' he hissed to himself.
Shadow sighed again and sat back in his chair. Now it was getting really late, time to retire for the night. He didn't sleep but he liked to relax with a good book. One had caught his eye, both extremely gory and very erotic, his absolute favorite. Time to recharge.
There was a meeting scheduledat Tails' House, tomorrow morning.
Yes, he was going to be there.