Chapter 2 – Shadow's Arrival

"I can't believe we're gonna work with that guy, he nearly blasted the planet, hell the moon's still scarred." Knuckles said dejectedly.

"To be fair, you once stole the Emeralds from Sonic because Eggman told you to" Amy pointed out. "Anyone can make mistakes"

"Sonic shouldn't've had them anyway, they are meant to be separated every time they're used unless they are under the Master Emerald's control. Besides that's hardly the same as genocide." Knuckles replied.

As Amy and Knuckles continued to bicker about the gullibility of Knuckles ("he showed me his doctorate dammit! Smart people aren't evil!") Tails started to think of situations in which the Chaos Emeralds had disappeared in the past, and all he could think of was the time they ended up in Blaze's universe. But that wouldn't make sense, there was no sign of any kind of portal between universes, last time there were earthquakes and bizarre energy spikes across the globe, but everything is completely calm. Even Eggman hadn't been heard of since the Hex incident.

"Look, fine! I was dumb, but I wasn't evil, Shadow tried to kill us all!"

"I talked him out of it though, he's been good ever since."

"Oh come off it! We have no idea what he's been up to."

"But Knuckles…"

"NO BUTS" Knuckles yelled, truly livid at this point, "THE GUY'S A GENOCIDAL MONSTER AND IF YOU THINK I'M WORKING WITH THAT PSYCHOPATH…!'

"Am I interrupting anything?" a deep voice asked.

Knuckles squealed ever so slightly.

"Oh hi Shadow, we were just talking about you" said Tails in a friendly, absent-minded way.

"I swear I wasn't! I was talking about erm… Espio, yeah that guy sucks!"

"Whatever, what did you want fox?" asked Shadow, dismissing Knuckles entirely.

"M…my name is Tails", he replied with some annoyance "anyway we came to ask if you know anything about the lack of chaos energy" he became noticeably more confident now that he was on a mission to learn more. "Knuckles and I have both found that neither of us can track the Emeralds, at first I thought Knuckles might have forgotten how to work the Master Emerald…"

"Hey! You didn't tell me that!" Knuckles interjected, Tails ignored him.

"…but it turns out that my tracker can't find anything either, it's like the Emeralds don't even exist."

"I've had similar difficulties, usually Rouge can track down Emeralds with ease, but lately she says her instincts are gone. I can't even use my Chaos spears." Shadow said.

"That confirms some of my suspicions, you can normally make those spears out of whatever Chaos energy is present in the air around us right? If you can't that means that the chaos energy of this world has depleted." Tails said, with his eyes closed, clearly thinking deeply.

Shadow folded his arms "That makes sense, but the only way to bring the energy back would be with the Chaos Emeralds themselves, but they are untraceable. Where's the blue hedgehog?" Shadow asked, only just noticing Sonic's absence.

"He disappeared about a year ago, we have no idea where he is." Amy answered, sadly.

"Well then the two are almost certainly linked, wherever the blue hedgehog goes, the Emeralds are never far behind him, I haven't seen mine since I sent it off to the Hex." Shadow stated.

"Wait a minute, you helped Sonic?" Knuckes asked, accusingly. "Since when do you help us? Last time we saw you, you were fighting Sonic in that White Space place!"

"I…I wasn't helping him!" Shadow replied angrily "I just wanted him to be as much of a spectacle as possible, to keep the media on him and away from me and…"

"Hang on, that's it!" exclaimed Tails suddenly, "I think I might know where Sonic is!"

Tails ran to his computer and booted up the Emerald tracking software. Everyone followed him. Amy appeared to be hyperventilating with excitement, her coughing broke the silence.

"Amy calm down." Knuckles said. "You're going to hurt yourself. So what are you thinking Tails?"

"The White Space, that was only a couple of years ago right? The Chaos Emeralds came with us didn't they, Shadow! You had one!"

"Yes, I was holding it when I was dragged through by that monster."

"Exactly, all seven were in White Space then. So if I look at the ETS records from back then we should see, YES!" Tails literally flew out of his chair in excitement. "Look! During the very brief time we were in White Space, the ETS was blank. It was only for a second but I'm sure the same thing is happening now!"

"All right Tails!" cheered Knuckles excitedly. "So all we need to do is get back there, let's go!"

Tails immediately looked downtrodden, he fell from the ceiling as his Tails slumped down, luckily he landed on the sofa.

"I have no idea how to get there." Tails admitted.

"Follow the blue hedgehog." Shadow commanded.

"What do we mean? We don't know where Sonic went, he just told Tails he was going for a run." Amy said.

"He said he was going somewhere flat, somewhere he could try to beat his land speed record."

"The deserts of Shamar" said Shadow.

Tails had been arguing with Shadow for the entire flight.

"How long has this being going on for!? Tails yelled, over the noise of the propeller.

"Since the Ark" Shadow answered, he didn't think it was worth yelling about.

"Why didn't Sonic just tell me he'd been racing you the whole time!?

"Because I asked him not to"

"Why"

"None of your business fox" Shadow said, trying to end the discussion.

"I've been waiting months for some clue to show up, you could've just told me!" Tails continued to shout.

"I wasn't aware he was missing, he didn't show up to our last race, I assumed he'd just got bored"

"SONIC NEVER GETS BORED OF RACING!"

"Would you guys settle down a little, I think you're making Knuckles feel…"

"BLEURGH" Knuckles vomited out of the plane.

Shadow looked out ahead.

"There it is, those two boulders are our starting line."

As they slowed down to land, Shadow steadied himself (He had been stood on the wing the entire flight as there were only two passenger seats) and both Amy and Knuckles were looking forward to landing, Knuckles because watching Shadow on the wing was making him feel ill, and Amy because she was terrified that Knuckles might throw up again and ruin her dress.

The Tornado landed cleanly onto the sand, everyone stepped off the plain, except Knuckles who decided it was safer to crawl.

"This is it then?" Tails asked.

"This is where me and the blue one always start" Shadow confirmed.

"What's this?" Amy asked, pointing out some scratch marks on the wall.

"They're irrelevant, we need to start looking." Shadow replied, a little too quickly.

"It looks like some kind of chart, it says… AHH!" she suddenly squealed in joy.

"What is it AMY" asked Tails, walking over.

"It says Sonic's name, he's been here recently."

"That's been there for years" Shadow corrected. "It's just a dumb scoreboard he insisted on keeping."

"Oh yeah, there's Shadows name" Knuckles walked up, still looking a little green. "And it looks like he beat Sonic three times, and Sonic beat Shadow, erm… let me just count." He started counting all the little markings.

"We don't have time for this!" Shadow barked at the group, but they were having none of it.

"Wait a minute, you actually beat Sonic? Tails asked

"Don't sound so surprised" Shadow said, though he couldn't look Tails in the eye.

"Are you sure you beat him" Tails asked, smirking.

"If he doesn't turn up it counts as a forfeit and I win" Shadow coolly remarked, folding his arms.

"Hang on, three times? That means you've been coming here every three months, even though Sonic hasn't turned up?

"I want to beat him" Shadow replied, looking away from Tails.

"I think you miss him" Tails intoned, smirking the entire time.

"I DON'T MISS HIM" Shadow exploded, regaining his composure he said, "he's just good training that's all.

"Haha, yeah sure whatever" Tails laughed.

"Look are we going to look for him or just keep mocking me!" Shadow growled, clearly angry by now.

"Fifty-seven times! Knuckles yelled triumphantly.