Chapter 2
Dr. Eggman was having a wonderful time. He had taken the city by storm, literally. An artificial storm created on the underside of the Egg Fleet's flagship had crippled the city of Monsteropolis. Power stations were dead, robots were fried, and the population of humans was quickly coming to fear this threat of such massive proportions as to cover the sky with atmospheric fighter robots and capitol ships alike. Eggman's turrets fire again and again, using pure destructive force against the massive robot army assaulting him. Their cannons fired as well, but were designed to penetrate less powerful energy shields than he was sporting on even his fighters. The power of the Chaos Emeralds was far greater than any sort of conventional weapon that they could array against him.
Missiles and lasers spattered and blew up on the surface of his secondary shield, the one covering his primary shield, and for all the good it did them, they ought to be throwing stones at the massive flagship. He responded with his own barrage of lasers, tearing into the miles-high road and annihilated the majority of the robotic forces that continued to oppose his fleet. Eggman decided he was bored at merely firing down on the opposing army; it was time to give them a little challenge. His hangar doors opened, and half his fighter force, 2500 robots, swarmed from the bay, raining precisely targeted laser fire on the beleaguered army, and all units began to retreat, but only to find Eggman's infantry halting their approach. Dr. Ivo Robotnik, alias Eggman, had conquered Monsteropolis, the center of robotics technology in this version of Earth, and could use the full resources of knowledge and power arrayed here to conquer this entire planet.
"So Shadow, what do you think?" Eggman asked the black and red hedgehog sitting behind him.
"Huh?" replied the very preoccupied hedgehog "oh, well, you might not want to risk the Infantry just now, but it's your decision" Shadow said in a hollow, unenthusiastic voice, contemplating a scuff mark on the deck, possibly made by him.
"Hmm" Eggman completely ignored the pouting of the ultimate life form, and instead considered his words. "Perhaps I shall… pull them back to give them some more fighting spirit… this might just get interesting, thank you Shadow."
"Hmm…" was all Shadow had to say on the subject, for he was deeply troubled, it seemed that he had lost his memory (again for us), and that the Dr. was the grandson of his creator, but beyond that the Dr. never said much, only ordered Shadow around.
Eggman had finished blaring his orders to his robots, and was observing how the battle was turning out, when an alarm began to beep quietly, shutting it off, Dr. Eggman turned again to Shadow. "Shadow, it's time" he said, Shadow was confused, and looked skeptically at his master and waited for him to elaborate, but he didn't, only got up from his chair and beckoned Shadow to come with him. Shadow immediately rose to follow.
They walked along the brightly lit corridors, Shadow turning occasionally as he walked to look at Eggman, but he never was able to catch the Dr's spectacled eyes. They walked through a variety of doors that hid a room that Eggman told Shadow was off-limits. Shadow had thought it was the chaos emerald-powered generator, but it wasn't. It was a room with a little operating table the Dr. sometimes used to fix or create key robots or new designs, there was no one on it at present, and the room seemed bare of tools or contraptions. He stood near the closing blast door, waiting for the Dr's instructions. "Lie down on the Table Shadow; it's time to get your memory back to good working order"
"What?" Shadow thought he had misheard, get his memory back? "Yes Dr." said Shadow quickly as he walked briskly forward, but was held up by Eggman.
"On one condition…"
"Yes Dr, anything!" replied Shadow with a little plea in his voice that was quite unlike him.
"Whatever you may remember, I need you for this mission, it's crucial that I get your help just this once, I intentionally wiped your memory to keep you safe until we got here." Shadow was huffed that the Dr had deceived him, but there were so many questions he needed his memory for, he couldn't refuse, he got up onto the table. Immediately the table was raised up and thick leather straps lightly bound his wrists and ankles, and a large, archaic-looking machine extricated itself from the floor, and attached itself to the black quills on Shadow's head. Shadow wasn't worried, only excited, he would finally be able to recall his past life, and he was confident he could take it. As those readers who have recovered from a memory wipe will know, we can't handle it. After living his life a second time, Shadow was back to his bitter and infinitely dark and rebellious self,
"What is it you wish me to do Dr" he said in a cool voice despite his anger at the portly man.
"There is a robot in this dimension by the name of Protoman, here is his picture, he's red, and has both a blue and black counterpart, don't get them mixed up and don't get them on the same side".
"Destroy them all?" asked Shadow
"Yes, if you can manage it, but be careful, they're all powerful in their own way."
"Any particular stats or special abilities I should know about?" asked Shadow
"No, they all possess the same weaponry, but the red one can shoot two bolts at a time, charge up a huge blast and has a shield, the black one can rapid fire, and the blue one both fire 3-4 shots and charge, and has the most experience."
"Is that all?" asked Shadow sarcastically.
"Yes, now get going, the robots and ships in my command are only a diversion to bring out these dangerous enemies, and be sure not to harm my robots!"
Shadow remembered the words from his past vendetta to discover clues to his other memory loss, like a looped recording that played whenever a robot shot at him. He charged out the open hangar doors and on to the street 20 miles below, landing lightly and looking around. It was a very advanced city, which even had its own cadre of flying cars, which Shadow could use. He hopped up the walls of two tightly packed buildings and threw himself onto the skylanes, grabbing onto a robotically controlled delivery truck. After a few minutes flight, he jumped off the oblivious robot, and sailed towards the street. He landed close to where the fighting was going on, and saw the portly orange Eggman robots retreating from the ground forces of Monsteropolis.
Rounding the corner, he spotted the collection of human and robotic solders pressing their allowed advantage, not even realizing they were headed for a trap. Shadow sighed and pulled out the Green Chaos Emerald that had been given to him by the Dr, and repeated the words that came most naturally to him.
"CHAOS CONTROL!"
He teleported into the very heart of the more pitiful of the robot armies and began to wreak havoc. He tore through a large portion with chaos blast, blasted the rest with chaos spear, and tore through the ranks with the bodies of human and robot alike flying behind him.
"Shadow!" a voice called to him through the tiny earbud "your first target has been detected, head out the main east road into the countryside, he's flitting among the hills there"
"Acknowledged Dr." Said Shadow as he turned from the destruction he had wrought and bolted toward his intended target, Shadow was running the information through is head again, would it be the black one, the red one, or the blue one? Using the limited information the Dr. had given him, he was developing battle strategies for tackling each of the supposed ultra powerful robots, but he was confident. "I've taken on Sonic, Black doom, and a time god, what difference could these robots make?" Shadow reminded himself. He skated along nearly abandoned streets above dark chasms, flashing by medical vessels that he ignored, and military vessels that he destroyed.
The street abruptly began to slope downward; Shadow looked back and saw that the main street sloped away from a vast wall that apparently held the lower parts of the city. He shrugged and continued on, skating down the massive Ramp until it was parallel with the ground, and he could see nothing but bright green grasslands for a long way, until he spotted the low hills the Dr. had described. Turning off the road, he tore toward the hills, scanning for a humanoid form.
A flash of red energy, a streak toward the sky, "Chaos Control?" he thought. Then abruptly, his path was held up by a large white object with a black stripe in its center. He jumped over it, leaping 15 feet in the air and front flipping to view the rear of this strange object, but it was gone. Then he noticed a figure standing on a nearby hill, a large black visor staring at him from behind the white thing "a shield" Shadow recognized it. The red robot turned towards Shadow, white and red helmet blazing in the noontime glare. The robot's yellow scarf flapped in the breeze as he and Shadow faced each other across the distance between hills. Shadow pulled out his chaos emerald as the Robot activated his weapon and both combatants charged forward and met in midair with a flurry of blows and exchanges of energy.
