Chapter 2: A New Focus

Scratch, Grounder and Coconuts had managed to heal their wounds with their encounter with a certain Shadow the Hedgehog. After a grueling recovery, the three then set out to find the notorious black hedgehog in the woods that was mistaken to where a certain blue hedgehog was thought to hang out.

"So how the heck are we going to stop this black hedgehog?" asked Coconuts to Scratch and Grounder, "He destroyed some of our most advance weapons we took from Dr. Eggman."

"True my monkey robot friend" replied Scratch to which he then pressed a button on a remote control, "but I managed to grab this controller for Eggman's old mech he had stored in his lab."

"Are you sure Eggman minds that you took one of his most prized inventions?" asked Grounder.

"Oh, he's still busy writing the story of his life, or whatever he's writing in his office, I'm sure he wouldn't mind at all" replied Scratch as the large mech emerged from the woods.

"Wow, with that mech, we can certainly crush the black hedgehog for sure!" laughed Coconuts.

"And it's got three seats just for us!" added Grounder.

"Come on, we don't have any time to waste" said Scratch as the three leaped right into the mech, onto their seats, "let's get this thing started now, bawahaha!"

As Scratch started up the mech, meanwhile, a certain Shadow the Hedgehog was still trying to get out of the forest. As he turned around another corner, he noticed that this was the same place he had been before.

"Great, just great, I can't believe I got myself lost in this forest here" sighed Shadow as he stopped to assess where he really was.

But after a few minutes, Shadow could hear a strange sound coming from the forest, like if it were some sort of a strange vehicle coming his way. The birds in the forest kept on flying out of the trees they were sitting, as this were quite a large vehicle of some sort coming his way.

"Well, looks like I can check this out" said Shadow as he sped off again.

Shadow then headed straight toward where all the commotion in the dark forest was, as he stopped, he noticed that it was a large mech, sawing through all the trees of the forest as if it were trying to search for something. The mech then turns its attention toward Shadow, who was standing on the edge of the path the mech had created.

"Look, there's that black hedgehog!" cried Coconuts who was at his seat on the mech.

"Fire the advance lasers!" ordered Scratch.

Suddenly laser guns emerged from the mech, targeting Shadow, as he stood in the mech's path like a sitting duck. As the lasers were fired at him, Shadow quickly managed to dodge the attacks that were coming right at him. He raced around the mech, which made it difficult to follow Shadow. The black hedgehog then leaped, and spun himself into a ball revealing his spikes and began to quickly dismantling the laser guns on the mech itself.

"He's dismantling our laser guns!" cried Grounder.

"How about those chainguns that Eggman installed on this thing here?" asked Coconuts.

"Good idea, let's use those against the black hedgehog" replied Scratch.

As Shadow finished off dismantling the laser guns on the mech, he landed right back on the ground to rest for a few seconds.

"Is that all you got?" asked Shadow as he began to catch his breath to which the chainguns were then revealed, "Apparently, you need to be taught a lesson to not mess with me."

The chainguns then began to fire at Shadow, to which the black hedgehog quickly was able to dodge the attacks like before. Shadow then went, and personally ripped out the chainguns from the mech, each one from their mech.

"Now that black hedgehog is dismantling those chainguns!" cried Coconuts.

"Is there anything else we can use against him?" asked Grounder as he turned to Scratch who was sitting in the seat in the middle.

"Hmm, this flamethrower button here should do us quiet nicely, bawahaha!" laughed Scratch as he pressed the red button that was on the console.

Suddenly, the mech began to shoot fire at Shadow, as it was finally using its flamethrower weapon which Scratch had activated. The black hedgehog had an easier time of dodging the flamethrower installed on the mech, but it seemed like the flamethrower would be impossible to remove.

"I think it's time that I ought to reveal these jokers for who they really are" said Shadow as he managed to hide behind a rock and took out a Chaos Emerald he had often kept in his inventory, "Chaos Control!"

Meanwhile, back inside the mech, Scratch, Grounder and Coconuts watched as the area where they believed Shadow was thought to have hid was in flames thanks to the mech.

"We did it!" cried Scratch as he stood up in his seat cheering.

"Yeah, we showed that black hedgehog whose the real boss here!" laughed Grounder.

"You said it" added Coconuts, "now can we finally go and concentrate on using this mech against a certain blue hedgehog now?"

"I think you three have just made a very big mistake" said a voice behind them.

As the three turned around, they were quite frighten to see Shadow the Hedgehog himself right behind them, and inside their mech.

"H-H-How did you manage to sneak up on us like that?!" cried Scratch who was quite afraid of Shadow.

"Trade secret I'm afraid, but you three will not have enough time to learn that as it seems that paper weights will be more of a suitable career for you three" said Shadow as he was preparing to rough up the three.

Shadow then gave each of the three quite a beating, breaking the glass that was covering the top of the mech and literally throwing them out of it. The black hedgehog then promptly pressed the self-destruct button on the mech, and quickly managed to rush out of the scene, only leaving Scratch, Grounder and Coconuts in the range of the self-destruction explosion.

"This is going to be quite painful!" cried Coconuts as the mech was in self-destruction mode.

Suddenly the mech then explodes, sending Scratch, Grounder and Coconuts flying right in the air and onto a tree.

"Hey, look on the bright side, at least we landed safely" said Grounder.

But Grounder spoke too soon, which the branches where Grounder, Scratch and Coconuts had landed on broke and the three promptly fell quite hard on the ground. As the three woke up from their ordeal, they noticed Shadow the Hedgehog was looking right down at them.

"Now I'm going to give you three pranksters your final warning, don't cross my path again, or I'll turn you all into scrap metal" said Shadow as he barked right at them and then promptly sped off.

"W-W-What do we do now?" asked Coconuts to Scratch and Grounder.

"That black hedgehog made it personal, I say we stop the black hedgehog for good, and I think I know how" replied Scratch.