Written by KeiLionheart98
Based on an unused comic book storyline written by Karl Bollers for Archie's Sonic the Hedgehog published by Archie Comics.
This re-write is intended for entertainment purposes and is also intended for those who feel the original story was lackluster and could have been better. No offence is intended for anyone who enjoyed the original story.
Black Hog Down - Part 2
New Megaopolis, the capital of Robotnik's empire. The streets are barely empty, many Shadowbots are patrolling the city. Their eyes are glowing bright red. The craft (in stealth mode) arrives as it flies over the city and lands near the city junkyard undetected. The Knothole Special Forces Team exit the craft.
"Well, here we are again, New Megaopolis." Sonic says as he steps out of the craft. "Just looking at it brings back bad memories of when Robuttnik had control over Robotropolis."
Tails then takes out a GP and presses a button that shows a holographic projection of a city's map. "Okay team, this is the map of New Megaopolis." He tells the rest of the team. "Nicole was able to downloaded it to this GP the last time we were here rescuing Tommy. And here is the complete inside structure of Robotnik's Fortress. Rotor mentioned that Robotnik's Fortress has many computer rooms and at least one is the surveillance room. If we can find that room, we'll be sure to find the location to where Robotnik is keeping Hope and find Shadow."
The team arrives at the fortress, discovering that the front metal door has a large, round dent, allowing the team to enter the fortress. They were almost detected by the surveillance camera which is at the entrance, but they managed to avoid detection by running to the wall under where the surveillance is. Tails sees a door from the other wall and he leads the team to the doorway before the surveillance could turn the other way. By the time the team had reached the door to the next room, they've successfully got out of the surveillance's view before it could even catch them. They enter the next room with three-way hallways, the team stands in the middle.
"Alright, gang," says Sonic. "So, here's what gonna happen; I'm going on ahead solo and hunt down Shadow! Fiona and Amy are one team and will look for the Detention Center where Hope is being held!"
"Got it!" said Fiona with a thumbs up.
"You can count on me, Sonic!" Amy said with a smile and a salute.
"And Tails, you and Bunnie are team two. Your job is to look for a computer room to find any surveillance and call me back with the Comm-Link if you find anything."
"Okay Sonic!" Tails nods. "But Sonic," the fox follows up just as Sonic is about to leave. "Shadow has Chaos Power and is stronger than all of us combined. Are you sure you can handle him?"
"It's okay, lil' buddy. I survived a lotta tough situations before, this one's no different. See ya!"
With that Sonic runs through the middle hallways and begins his search for Shadow, while the rest of the team will go their own ways to look for Hope; Tails and Bunnie head left for the computer room, and Amy and Fiona go right the look for the Detention Cells and find their overlander friend and bring her back safely.
Shadow wakes up in an in-close room. He looks around through nearly-closed eyes, his vision was blurry for a moment. He's still inside a glass tube, almost looking like the old roboticizer.
"Good morning, Shadow. Do you have a lovely stay in my exquisite suite?"
"Lovely? SUITE?! You gassed me and left me inside this wretched glass prison!"
"You're welcome." Robotnik says, sarcastically. "Honestly, some people are so impolite!"
"Let me out of here, right now!" Shadow yells as he bangs on the glass.
"Ho ho ho! You can go whenever you desire! I've already got what I wanted from you."
"What?!" exclaimed Shadow. "What is it that you want from me?"
"Ho ho ho ho ho! I can't tell you that. It would spoil the surprise."
Robotnik leaves the dark, laughing manically, leaving the black and red hedgehog inside the glass prison. Shadow has finally at his breaking point, he has been tricked by Robotnik into coming here after he kidnapped the young that reminded him of Maria.
"Robotnik! He was only using Hope to trap me! I'm going to make him pay, for taking Hope away from me and trapping me inside a closed room! I will destroy Robotnik and anyone who gets in my way!" Shadow himself has finally had it, he is not able to let anything or anyone hold him down. The glass capsule that is holding Shadow finally breaks, shattered glass falls like rain. He steps out of his capsule prison with no patience left. There was pure anger in his eyes, hatred on his face. He is ready to destroy anyone who gets in his way.
Sonic is walking through the hallways of the fortress. The whole place was so huge that he could get himself lost in these halls. He looked left and right for Shadow. Speaking of whom, he too is walking along the hallways meanwhile, searching for Robotnik. Sonic finally finds Shadow.
"Shadow!" He yells out, but as Sonic was about to help Shadow, the black and red hedgehog punches his blue rival, pushing him to the floor.
"What are you doing here, Faker?!" Shadows askes with a furious tone.
"I came to talk some sense into you." Sonic says while getting up on his knee, holding his jaw. "Tails explained everything. We can still save Hope; you just need to calm down."
"Calm down? I am not accountable to you!"
Shadow jumps and is about to punch him again, but Sonic and moves out of the way. He then kicks Shadow in the gut. Shadow quickly recovers and teleports away just as when Sonic was about to pull off the second move. Shadow appears from behind Sonic and kicks Sonic in the back of the head, which sends the blue blur to the wall. As the vengeful hedgehog runs after Sonic, he reacts quickly and jumps off the wall, landing in a corner, and Spin Attacks Shadow in the head. Shadow recovers from Sonic's attack quickly and teleports. Sonic looks both sides, bracing himself for what Shadow has next. After 8 seconds, Shadow grabs Sonic from behind and throws him down from the balcony, landing in the lower floor.
In another part of the fortress nor far from where Sonic is, Amy and Fiona hear a thud, and they rush over to find the source of the noise. While Sonic is laying on the floor, brushed and trying desperately to get up. In one of Sonic's attempts to get up, Shadow steps on Sonic's back, forcing Sonic back to the ground.
"How pathetic! You were the same hedgehog that gave his life to save Mobius one year ago, but you couldn't win in a fight against the Ultimate Lifeform!" Shadow hears footsteps from behind and sees the shadows of Amy and Fiona coming from the corner. "I don't have time for games! Farewell!" Shadow lets go of Sonic and quickly takes off. At that moment, Amy and Fiona arrive, they find Sonic injured from his fight against Shadow. The girls were in complete shock.
"Sonic!" Amy and Fiona say in shock of seeing a hurt Sonic, laying on the ground. "Oh, man! He looks pretty bad!" says Fiona. After arriving by Sonic's side, Amy prepares to help Sonic up as Fiona takes out her backpack and pulls out her comm-link.
Tails and Bunnie are in another of the fortress looking for the control room when the comm-link begins ringing from the pocket of Bunnie's jacket. Bunnie pulls the comm-link out of her pocket and answers, pressing the "talk" button and brings the comm-link to her left ear. "Talk to me, Sugah!"
"Bunnie!" Fiona says through the comm-link. "This is Fiona! Sonic's been injured. I need the med-kit. Stat!"
"Copy that! I'll retrieve it from Freedom One and be back in a flash!" replies Bunnie. Having received the message, Bunnie puts the comm-link back in her pocket, turns to the other direction and jets off back to the air craft to get the medical kit.
"Bunnie! Wait!" yelled Tails at Bunnie.
"Don't cha worry, Sugah-Tails. You go on ahead!" she tells Tails as she jets off.
"But I'm gonna need the Comm-link!" Tails tries to Bunnie, but she's already gone, heading to Sonic and aid him for his injuries.
Meanwhile, Amy tends to Sonic, helping him sit up against a wall. "Easy, Sonic! Just relax!" Amy says as she helps Sonic to sit up.
"I'm okay, Ames!" Sonic says. "Just… exhausted!"
"You look more banged-up than exhausted!" Fiona pointed out.
"Tell us what happened." Said Amy.
"You want the full-story or the abridged version?" Sonic asks.
"Full-story!" The girls reply.
"Ran into Shadow." Sonic told the girls. "I tried to talk some sense into him but he refused to co-operate. So, we duked it out for who knows how long! Bottom line… that faker can throw a punch!"
"Shadow may look like a hedgehog, but I'm not sure that he's in some way related to you. I don't think he's mobian like us." Commented Fiona. Just then, Bunnie arrives, flying with her jet-feet with the med-kit in her arms.
"Bunnie!" said everyone.
"OK, settle down, Sugahog, Ah'm a here, now." Bunnie settles her jet feet down and proceeds to tend Sonic's injuries. She bends on her knees and starts aiding Sonic's injuries. She takes a roll of band aid and wraps it around Sonic's injured elbow.
After walking through the hallways of Robotnik's fortress alone, trying to avoid getting caught by the surveillance orbs and the Shadowbot Guards, Tails finds a dark room. He steps in to take examine the room more closely.
"Hello? Anybody home? No?" he says as he enters the room. He flicks the light-switch by the door and the lights go on. It reveals to be the control room, where it has a surveillance system, the exact room that Tails and Bunnie were tasked to look for. He finds the main computer in the room. It has many monitors, showing every part of New Megaopolis and even within the fortress. Tails was ecstatic to find the room to find his friends. The young fox cub looks over to the row on the right and sees a young blonde overlander girl inside of a cell, somewhere in the darkest corners of the city. Tails was surprised when he discovered the location of the friend, he requested to the Knothole Special Forces Team to rescue. "Hope! I found her. Now if only I can contact the others and tell her where she is."
Just then, he notices something else on the other monitors. He sees a shadowy figure of a hedgehog. "Huh? What's this?" The figure of the shadow steps out, revealing to be Shadow, and he's heading to the control room where Robotnik is. Seeing a blood-hungry Shadow in the monitors, Tails becomes shocked. "Shadow! I gotta warn the others, but I don't know how to communicate with them." He spots a microphone by the computer and a pile of broken wires. This gave Tails an idea, and so using his tinkering skills, he carefully re-worked the wires to fix and connect the microphone to the computer so that he can be able to contact the rest of the group.
Back in the hallways, Sonic is seen with a band aid cloth around his elbow, being carried by Bunnie and Fiona. Suddenly, a voice comes out from the comm-link. "Hello? Sonic? Can anyone here me?"
Sonic hears the voice from the comm-link and reacts. "Huh? Tails? Am I going nuts, or am I hearing you voice?" He asks.
"Thank goodness." Said Tails through the comm-link. "Listen, I've found Shadow, he's heading for Robotnik's control room."
"How do you know?" Sonic asked again.
"I'm in the control room," replied Tails through Sonic's comm-link. "and I've found Hope! She's being held in Detention Cell 7-G."
"Excellent! Thanks, buddy! Team-?"
"We heard ya loud and clear, Sugah-Hog!" said Bunnie.
"Great! I'm going after Shadow."
"Sonic, don't be rash!" said Fiona.
"Yeah! You already busted yur elbow." Bunnie points out. "You wanna bust yur'self-up more by fightin'-"
"Relax, Buns. I can stop Shadow. While you girls head to the Detention Cell and bust Hope outta there! Later!" After insuring the girls about his well-being, the blue hedgehog takes off at sonic speed. As he runs through the halls, he takes out his comm-link to speak to Tails. "Tails, give the directions to Shadow's whereabouts!"
"Okay, Sonic! Here's where Shadow's heading!"
While Sonic is running in the halls being assisted by his friend via communicator, Shadow is walking down the corridor to the main computer room, where Robotnik should be operating. He has broken down every door in the corridor to find the room, but to no avail.
"Robotnik! I know you're here! Show yourself, now!" he shouts.
He finds the last door at the end of the corridor and with a deep breath, breaks down the door. He finds a dark room, with oddly, no surveillance cameras. He looks around the room to find Robotnik, he can hear working machines, lights are flickering a little, and wires with sounds of a little voltage.
"Robotnik!" he shouted again. As his patience grows weary, something unexpected happens.
"Ho ho ho ho ho ho ho!" laughed a voice through the speakers, surprising Shadow. "You still here, Shadow? I'm guessing that you're taking a liking to my place. If you have any problems, I do apologize, but-"
"Doctor! You kidnapped Hope and brought her to this place! Give her back, now!"
"Ohh! Is that it?" Robotnik says amusingly. "Well I'm afraid that won't be possible. You see, Hope is my niece from by brother's marriage to Ms. Hopkins so I should be allowed to complete custody to her, and now, she's staying with here! So, giving her to you is not a choice."
"I will show no mercy, Robotnik! Give her back!"
Just then, Sonic arrives at the in time and finds Shadow.
"Shadow! You don't have to do this!" Sonic tells Shadow as he walks towards him. Unfortunately, seeing Sonic in his presence again, Shadow is not pleased.
"You again!" Shadows exclaims, and attacks Sonic again. He misses when Sonic moves away in time due to his speed. Sonic curls and spin dashes, slamming Shadow to a wall. After a moment, Shadow gets back up on his feet while recovering from the blow. "I already told you! I don't need you or your weak friends for any help, now back off!"
Shadow spins dashes Sonic to a corner and Sonic retaliates with his own spin attack. However, Shadow dodges by jumping and karate chops Sonic on the head. Sonic lands on the floor, face down, and is about to be hit from the back of the head again, but luckily, Sonic quickly sees Shadow's next attack and rolls to his left, avoiding the hit and causing Shadow's fist to smash into the ground.
Sonic gets back up on his feet. "Shadow, stop! We can save Hope together!" he says.
Shadow still doesn't listen and continues to fight Sonic. He tries to attack Sonic again with another spin attack, but Sonic swiftly moves to the right, and begins to fight back. The two hedgehogs have an all-out brawl, unaware of the surveillance camera up from above them.
Meanwhile inside Robotnik's main computer room, the surveillance shows the footage of Shadow fighting with Sonic, as well the KSFT inside the fortress. Seeing his arch-enemy with his grandfather's creation inside the base, as well as the actions of the KSFT made Robotnik's blood boil in fury. He's not going to let his greatest enemy get in the way of his plans for Shadow.
"Not those irritating rodents! Always interfering with my plans."
"Do you wish for me to summon the Shadowbots to deal with the intruders!" asked A.D.A.M.
"Yes!" exclaimed Robotnik "Do as you must, my son! Hurry up and take Sonic the Hedgehog, as well as those Freedom Fighters out. I don't care if you kill them all!"
Meanwhile, Tails notices some doors opening, with Shadowbots coming out. He's shocked seeing this, believing that Robotnik knows that the KSFT are inside the fortress. Tails grabs the mike and tries to contact Sonic.
"Sonic, can you hear me?!" he says to the mike. "There are more Shadowbots coming into the fortress. I think-" Suddenly, all of the surveillance screens begin to go static. Tails has lost the connection to Sonic. He tries desperately to restart the program and get Sonic but it's no good. "Sonic? Sonic!"
While Sonic and Shadow are still duking it out, the alarms then sound the fortress. Sonic is in complete shock as they hear the sound of the loud alarm. He has been stricken with a strong feeling that it is not good. As Shadow lets Sonic go, Sonic tries to reach him.
"Shadow!" Sonic calls out to Shadow, but again, Shadow has no interest in going with Sonic.
"Stay out of my way, I warn you!" Shadow says and he teleports away.
"Shadow, wait!" says Sonic, but Shadow is already gone. Sonic is now alone with the room and the alarm; the lights lightning the room in red. Sonic's expression to the current situation has become worrisome, he thinks that Robotnik has figured out that the KSFT has broken into the fortress and now, he and the rest of the team are in grave danger as soon, the Shadowbots will come to annihilate the heroes…