Chapter 3: Scarlet the Hedgehog

Knuckles continued to chase Shadow out of the ruined city. The chase was now thorough the forest outside of Westopoils. Had he not been so focused on killing Shadow, Knuckles might have found it strange that Shadow had not used Chaos Control to leave the battlefield, but instead skated away slow enough for Knuckles to follow, without having to strain himself. But Knuckles probably won't have care, even if he had noticed.

Shadow skated up a hill and stopped at the top, with Knuckles right behind. All of a sudden, there was a flash of red light, a gun went off and Knuckles was on his knees, grabbing a gun wound on his left arm. He looked up and saw Shadow holding in his left hand the gun that had shot him and just a few moments ago had killed Sonic.

Again, had Knuckles not been so focused on revenge he might had found the look of shook on Shadow's face odd, and the fact that his eyes were no longer glowing might have been noted, and maybe the greatest difference, the fact that Shadow was now wearing black jeans with a leather jacket would've been seen, but no, Knuckles didn't care.

"Knuckles! Did you-" Shadow began.

Before he could finish, Knuckles ran up and gave Shadow right punch to the face, a left to the gut, and one more right to the face. Shadow fell to the ground, looked up at Knuckles and passed out.

With a groan, Shadow awoke. He tried to move, but could not. Shadow looked at his arms, he was shackled by rings of glowing energy that made it impossible to move. He looked around only to see darkness everywhere.

'Where's a light when you need one?' thought Shadow. Then, as if activated by his thoughts, a bright light shined in front of him. When his eyes adjusted Shadow realized the light was coming from a large T.V. screen. On it was a side view Sonic lying on a pile of rubble with Shadow standing in front of him, aiming a gun at his heart. The Shadow on the screen said "Game over, Sonic" and pulled the trigger. Then the screen went black.

Shadow blinked as his mind tried to fathom what he just saw. "What the hell is going on?" he said at length.

"Does a number on a guilty conscience, doesn't it?" came a voice from the darkness. The lights on the celling went on to revile the voice came from the G.U.N. Commander, who stood in the front-left corner of the room.

The room was very large, at least thirty feet height and forty feet wide, the wall in front of Shadow was just two huge doors, there was a smaller door on the left wall, all four walls were grey and had white G.U.N. symbols on them, the machine the held Shadow took up half of the room and was shaped like a pyramid, with Shadow at the top.

The Commander took a few steps forward and rubbed his forehead. "You know Shadow, I'm willing to admit when I'm wrong. And I thought I was wrong about you."

Shadow's eyes narrowed at the old man. "What are you babbling about?" he asked angrily.

"This!" The Commander took out a remote, pointed at the screen and pressed on of its buttons, which caused the screen to once again show Shadow shooting Sonic. "I thought I was wrong when I said you were evil, but I was right! You murder one of this world's greatest heroes just to prove you were better, you devil!"

"What are you talking about? I'd never-" Before Shadow could finished the Commander pointed his remote at the machine holding Shadow and pressed another button which made it send thousands of volts of electricity thorough Shadow's body causing him to twitch and yell out in pain. After about thirty seconds of this torture, the Commander turned off the electricity. Shadow nearly passed out and found it difficult to stop twitching every few seconds.

"Don't even try to lie!" barked the Commander. "I have four witnesses and a video tape all saying you killed Sonic! And, as if that wasn't enough, you were holding the murder weapon when we captured you!" The Commander began walking to towards the smaller door, looked back and said "When I leave this room again, there will be one less monster in the world!" Then, he stormed out.

After walking down the hallway on the other side of the door and up the stairs, the Commander entered a room with thirty monitors, ten of which showed different views of the room Shadow was in, the rest showed different parts of the complex. From these monitors, it is obvious that this complex was Prison Island. There were ten G.U.N. operatives working on computers in the room. Also, in this room were Knuckles and Tails. Knuckles was looking at the monitors that showed Shadow with his fist clenched, while Tails just stood there with his head down.

"Man," started Tails, "I can't believe this is happening."

"Well it is!" barked Knuckles. He turned to the Commander and added "I say we make Shadow suffer for what he's done!"

A grim smirk appeared on the old man's face as he starred at Shadow on the monitors. "Nothing would make me happier." he said.

A G.U.N. solider entered the room. "Sir! Someone is here to speak with you." said the solider.

"Who ever it is, they can wait," the Commander answered without even turning around.

"But sir, it's the President and he's in the room."

The Commander turned around and saw the President was indeed in the room. Quickly, the Commander saluted him. "Mr. President, I didn't think you be coming here!"

The President eyed the Commander for a moment. "When one of our
greatest heroes kills another, of course I'm going to get involved," he said darkly before turning to Shadow's monitors. "Now, were you really planning on killing Shadow right
away?"

"Well ,sir, I-" the Commander started.

"He should be killed!" interrupted Knuckles. "He murdered Sonic and we have all the proof we need, so let's just finish him!"

"Well, I'm not satisfied," said the President. It's to my understanding that Sonic had accepted
defeat. If that was the case, why would Shadow kill him? Especially when he
knew that there would be proof incriminating him that would cause legal forces
to take action against him"

"Sir," started the Commander. "What are you getting at?"

The President rubbed his eyes. "I just think more is happening here than we know."

Just then the ten monitors that showed Shadow went black. "Sir!" said one of the G.U.N. operatives. "We've lost all video feed form Containment Area 24!"

"Sir!" said another operative. "There's been a massive spike in Chaos Energy in Containment Area 24; I think someone has entered the room using Chaos Control!"

"Damn!" yelled the Commander. "That devil had an accomplice!" He took out a small communicator from his pocket. "Attention, all available units are to converge on Containment Area 24! I want all battle-mech units fully armed and ready to fight five minutes ago!"

Within minutes, almost every G.U.N. solider and mech on the island were in front of the large doors that lead to the room Shadow has held in, Containment Area 24, with Knuckles in front of them.

'Alright Shadow,' thought Knuckles. 'Time to pay!'

Then there was a large explosion from inside the room that created a gap in between doors. In the gap, a black figure could be seen.

The Commander stormed out of the room, leaving Shadow hurt and confused.

'Sonic's dead?' thought Shadow. 'And everyone thinks I killed him! What the hell's going on?' Shadow stood there trying in vain to figure it out, when a thought came to his mind. 'That hedgehog... that hedgehog with the glowing eyes! He said that he...'

Flashback

Shadow stood atop a hill out side Westopoils with his eyes closed and arms crossed.

'Damn it all.' thought Shadow. 'Where the hell is the Doctor. He said to be here at 6:00 p.m., and he's no where to be found. What's this surprise he promised anyway?'

Shadow felt something hit his left foot. He looked down to see a handgun next to his foot, which he picked up and than turned around to see who threw it at him. What he saw was defiantly a surprise.

'It's like looking in a mirror!' Shadow thought, and it was. The hedgehog in front of him looked just like him, except this one had glowing eyes and wasn't wearing anything but his natural fur.

"That's a nice gun, huh?" said the other Shadow, his voice filled with pride. "It's the one I just used to kill Sonic the Hedgehog."

Shadow's eyes widened. "What?" he yelped in shook. "Who are you?" The other Shadow said nothing, which enraged the first. "Answer me!" Shadow shot the gun at his mirror image, who vanished in a flash of red light.

Shadow ran to where his copy once stood and looked around. He then saw Knuckles on his knees holding his left arm.

"Knuckles! Did you-" Shadow began, but couldn't finish because Knuckles attacked him and knocked him out.

End of flashback

'... killed Sonic. That's it! He's the one who ended the faker.' Shadow straggled to break free, but to no avail. 'I have to tell them who it really was!' Realizing he could not use brute strength to escape, the ebony one calmed himself and tried to think of another way out.

Just then Shadow heard ten small explosions all around him. After which, a flash of red light came in front of the machine that held him. When it was over, the glowing eyed Shadow stood there.

After getting over the initial shock, Shadow stared hatefully at his twin. "You," he said. "Are you enjoying seeing me like this?"

The other Shadow chuckled as he said "More than you could ever imagine." He then jumped on to the machine that held the real Shadow. Their two faces were mere inches apart.

Further annoyed by how close he was to his copy, Shadow angrily asked, "Just who are you?"

The other Shadow chuckled evilly. "I'm the true Ultimate Life form! You're just a prototype compared to me!" He began to change. His black fur turned red, his red stripes turned black, his white chest fur turned yellow, his eyes stopped glowing and turned black. "I am Scarlet the Hedgehog!"

"Scarlet the Hedgehog?"

"That's right."

"You killed that faker!"

"Yep."

"And framed me?"

"Nothing gets past you, does it?"

"WHY!"

"Now, that would be telling."

"You smug, son of a bitch!"

Scarlet chuckled. "My mother is quite the pathetic man, isn't he?"

Shadow growled, annoyed further by his twin's lack of logic. "You'll pay..." Shadow said as he began to glow red. "You'll pay!" A red ball of energy grew around him. "YOU'LL PAY!"

Scarlet then vanished in a flash of red light, but Shadow continued on with his attack, ready to get out of this prison.

"CHAOS BLAST!" The ball of energy expanded with unbelievable force and speed, completely destroying the machine and created a gap in the doors. Shadow, who now stood in front of the ajar door, rolled his shoulders and cracked his neck.

'No one shackles me,' Shadow growled inwardly. He then heard what sounded like of hundreds of soldiers and meches on the other side of the doors. 'Right now they'll never believe me. I have to get out of here and catch Scarlet if I want to clear my name. Best way to do that,' The dark hedgehog braced himself and shouted "Chaos Control!'

Shadow flicked for a second, but did not vanish. "What the hell?" He looked at the ruined machine behind him. 'That damn thing must have drained most of my energy and the Chaos Blast took what ever I had left. I'll need an Emerald to get out of here.' Shadow looked back at the door. 'As much as I love killing humans, that would only help my mood, not my case, so...'

Shadow skated out the gap and past Knuckles, who tried to give him another punch, but Shadow was moving so fast he was just a blur.

The ultimate life form zigzagged through the soldiers, a few of which tried to shot him, only to succeed in killing the soldiers that was in front of them and making Shadow laugh. The meches weren't much more of a challenge, all he had to do was skate between their legs.

"Pathetic humans." said Shadow when he was through the "elite" forces of G.U.N. and heading for a large gate which he hoped lead to an exit. Shadow smashed the gate and found himself falling. He landed on a large square platform that had the length of a football field, was grey with a white G.U.N. symbol in the center, and was over something that had a blue glow. Shadow looked around for an exit; there wasn't one.

Then a large circular vehicle floated down from the celling. It was grey with several rocket launchers around it as well as on under the cockpit. It was piloted by a single G.U.N. solider. "Commander!" said the pilot to the radio. "This is the P.B.C.U. (Particle Beam Cannon Unit) leader Blue Falcon! I've spotted Shadow, preparing to engage the hedgehog!"

"Roger, Blue Falcon!" came the Commander's voice over the radio. "You are to stop Shadow at all costs, understood?"

"Yes sir! Get ready Shadow!"

Shadow crossed his arms, closed his eyes, and shook his head. "You humans don't know when to quit, do you?" Shadow struck a fight pose. "Humph. Let's get this over with."

The Blue Falcon began to circle the room, launching rockets at Shadow, which he could have easily dodged, but instead he grabbed one and threw it back at the Blue Falcon, causing noticeable damage to its weapons systems. Then, Shadow jumped into a homing attack, knocking of one of the Blue Falcon's rocket launchers.

Shadow was in the air above the vehicle when he felt a bit of his power return. With a smirk, he raised his hand in the air and shouted "Now to end this, Chaos Spear!" He quickly wave his hand and three energy projectiles were launched at high speeds at the vehicle. They hit and went straight thorough. The vehicle began to move madly.

"Damage to maim fuel tanks," said the pilot. "Massive damage to particle beam cannon and Emerald storage!"

"Emerald storage?" said Shadow as he landed on the Blue Falcon's back. "A Chaos Emerald?" He jumped and began another homing attack, which sent him straight thorough the Blue Falcon. When he came out the other side he was holding the blue Chaos Emerald. "Now we're talking!" Shadow turned around when he heard an explosion. He saw the Blue Falcon crash to the ground in a flaming heap of scrap metal.

Shadow sighed. "I guess I should save the pilot; I don't want G.U.N. to have any more ammo against me." He skated into the flames, pulled out the pilot, and got him away from the damaged vehicle. Shadow checked the man's vital signs, he was out cold, but still alive.

"Blue Falcon!" came the Commander's voice from the pilot's earpiece. "Blue Falcon, come in! Answer me damn it!"

Shadow took the earpiece from the pilot. "Hope the Blue Falcon wasn't very expensive," said Shadow to the earpiece. "Because now it's just scrap metal!"

"Shadow?"

"You should get medic up here. The pilot's not looking to good."

"Shadow you son of a bitch!"

"Now listen Commander, you and your soldiers are to leave me alone, got it? I'm not the one who killed that faker, if I was, I would have used my bear hands."

"You can't fool me, Shadow."

"You just don't like to listen, do you?" Shadow crushed the earpiece in his hand then looked at his Emerald. While looking at the Emerald, Shadow felt compelled to go to the ARK. "The ARK it is." Shadow held the Emerald over his head. "Chaos Control!" Shadow vanished.

Little did Shadow know that what he'd find on the ARK would change his life, forever