Chapter 3

Darkness Within

Shadow woke up a few hours later. He stood up, and looked at his body again. He didn't feel any pain, and his body looked okay. Shadow then remembered his Chaos Emerald and looked around for it. He saw it up on a tree and grabbed it. The green emerald shined happily when Shadow touched it. He got back on the ground and began to walk.

"Is it me…" Shadow thought, "Or am I forgetting something?"

Shadow thought back, remembering the fight back at Westropolis. He remembered meeting Sonic and getting the Chaos Emerald, then the fight with Black Bull, hey wait a minute…

"Sonic! That other Chaos Emerald!" Shadow shouted, turning around.

He began to run back to Station Square, but then his body turned red once again. The extreme pain returned to Shadow, and he got on his knees, growling.

"What is happening to me!" Shadow shouted as he screamed.

Shadow turned back to normal, only doing it forcefully.

"Perhaps I can answer that question…" a voice said.

Shadow turned around, and saw the figure that he saw from the hologram.

"Black Doom!" Shadow exclaimed.

Shadow jumped to Black Doom, doing a kick. Black Doom grabbed his foot and threw him in to a tree. The tree got snapped in half upon impact, and Shadow hit the ground, yelping in pain.

"I didn't come here to fight you, Shadow," Black Doom said.

Shadow got to his knees, "I don't care…"

Black Doom laughed a little, "Why such hostility? I only came here to help you…"

"And how do you expect me to trust you?"

"Because you have no choice."

"What?"

Shadow screamed again when he body enveloped in red again. He returned back to normal a second later, his body shivering.

"You seem to have problems controlling Chaos Blast," Black Doom said.

Shadow looked up, "You know about Chaos Blast?"

"Yes… you see Shadow… Chaos Blast comes from your anger and the hatred within you."

Shadow eyes widened, and he put a smug on his face, "Hate? Anger? That's where it comes from…" he thought.

"I can tell you how to control that power."

"How?"

"First… you need another Chaos Emerald."

Shadow started to walk to the GUN fortress to get to Sonic.

"Wait!"

"What? I know where another Chaos Emerald is."

"I had another location in mind…"

Sonic rushed through a group of GUN soldiers, running in the GUN fortress. He jumped to the second floor and into the door, where he ran even more. Sonic got to an automatic door and rushed through it, not caring if it was opening on its own. Sonic looked around into the room he just ran in. It was the control room. A lot of people were on computers, and they were all disturbed from the sudden entrance Sonic made. He didn't care much, since what was standing from a distance was a human.

"Who are you?" Sonic asked.

"I am the GUN Commander," he said.

That's all he needed to know. Sonic jumped towards the Commander, attempting a kick. The Commander stepped out of the way and Sonic hit the floor. He turned around and tried a punch, but the Commander grabbed his fist and did an overhead throw. Sonic hit the ground, but automatically got back up.

"You're pretty fast for an old geezer," Sonic said.

Suddenly, Sonic heard a lot of guns loading up. He looked around as saw a rather large number of GUN soldiers aiming at his body. Sonic looked back at the Commander with a smug.

"You must be pretty angry to try to attack me in my own headquarters," Commander said.

"Better believe it," Sonic said.

"But I know you didn't come here just to throw your life away… what do you want?"

"Plain and simple… Why did you order GUN to attack Shadow?"

"Because he is evil."

"Yet he saved Station Square…"

"He's trying to trick you."

"That's a lie."

"How can you be so sure? Has he really told you that he'll help you fight the aliens?"

"Yes he-" "Or did you persuade him?"

Sonic put an angry look on his face when Commander said that. He was really starting to be ticked.

"I see I was right…" Commander said.

"No… you're wrong," Sonic said, "Shadow fought the aliens even before I persuaded him."

Commander just shook his head quietly, "Men, stand down."

The GUN soldiers lowered their weapons and went back to their posts.

"Now listen to me, Sonic the Hedgehog," Commander said, "If you have no proof that Shadow is working for the benefit of mankind, then I'm going to assume he's evil… and if you try to attack me again, then I'll make sure GUN doesn't show mercy the second time around."

Sonic stared at Commander's eyes for a moment… he noticed they were different colors. One was blue and the other was green. Sonic stopped looking and came to his senses.

"Just don't hurt Shadow," Sonic said, "If he turns bad… which I highly doubt, then I'll take full responsibility for him and take him out myself."

Sonic just realized he said that, lowering his eyes. He began to think why he even said that.

"That sounds promising," Commander said.

"Sir!" a soldier shouted, running into the control room, "Reporting in!"

"Report," Commander said.

Sonic stepped out of the way, listening in. The soldier stood at attention, his battle armor still on and rifle still equipped.

"Sir! Station Square has taken many blows, but we've been able to push back the Black Arms."

"Black Arms?" Sonic asked.

"They're the alien invaders," Commander said, "continue."

"Central City has only taken minimum damage, GUN, Knuckles, and Rouge has driven back the Black Arms from entering."

"How about Westropolis?"

"Westropolis has taken the most damage as well as the most casualties. The city is almost in ruins."

"Black Arms have been able to push through your defenses?"

"No sir, the most damage caused was from a black hedgehog."

Sonic bowed his head, hearing that.

"Hmm… Shadow," Commander said, "Reports on the evacuation process?"

"Thankfully Westropolis has fully evacuated all of the citizens with minimum casualties, however Station Square as a whole isn't even halfway done yet."

"Hurry along the evacuation, and keep the Black Arms away from the President."

"Yes sir!"

"Dismissed!"

The soldier ran out the control room. Sonic looked at the Commander with a firm look.

"I have no time to talk about Shadow right now," Commander said, "look, with or without him, we're still working together to take out Black Arms."

"Oh sure…" Sonic said, "Just don't be surprised if I turn against you if you try to kill Shadow again."

Commander chuckled, then he laughed a little, "Enough about that hedgehog, we have more important…"

Tails ran in the control room, "Sonic!"

Sonic turned around, "Tails? How did you know I was here?"

Knuckles and Rouge walks in behind Tails.

"We didn't see you around Westropolis," Knuckles said, "So Rouge showed us the way to GUN Fortress."

"Sonic! We got some bad news!" Tails exclaimed.

"Hold on a minute, where's Amy?" Sonic asked.

"That's just it, Amy is gone!"

"What? Again?"

"Amy said she was going to help out a family in packing their things, but after an hour passed, I looked everywhere and she wasn't around."

"Man! Everything is going wrong today!" Sonic exclaimed, "Look, you three stay in Station Square, I'll go…"

Before Sonic could finish, a worker on a computer shouted, "Commander! We've detected a Chaos Emerald just within the range of GUN's Security Base!"

Commander turned around, "Put it on screen!"

A big light-up came to the big screen in the control room. It showed a radar. It kept sweeping the current area, and a green dot kept coming up, showing the Chaos Emerald.

"Pinpoint the Chaos Emerald's location!" Commander said.

"We can't! The Chaos Emerald is moving too fast!"

Sonic's eyes perked up when he heard that, "Oh no…"

"What is it?" Rouge asked.

Sonic turned to his friends, "Something bad is going to happen… Knuckles, I'm sorry, but can you try and find Amy for me? I really gotta move!"

"Uh… sure…" Knuckles said as Sonic was already out the door.

Upon GUN's Security Base, was a black hedgehog on a search for his past. That hedgehog was Shadow, skating along with his air shoes. He approached the Security Base, remembering what Black Doom said.

"There's a Chaos Emerald within the Security Base…" Shadow said, "But it won't be easy…"

"And remember Shadow…" Black Doom said, within Shadow's flashback, "If Chaos Blast flares up again, use it."

Shadow kept that in mind, as he got closer to the Security Base. There were two GUN soldiers guarding the gate entrance, and Shadow just went to them at full speed, doing a kick to the gut to one soldier, and throwing him to the other soldier. They fell to the ground, on to of each other, and Shadow jumped on the top body, and stomped them in the gut. Both the soldiers were now out cold, and Shadow pressed the button to open the gate. Shadow ran inside, noticing no alarms were being raised. Going inside the base, Shadow easily taken down the GUN soldiers that were standing in his way with solid punches and kicks. Those soldiers down, Shadow runs through a corridor, dodging bullets from a security camera. He steps into another corridor, and a large metal wall slams down behind Shadow, making sure he doesn't go back. He takes one step forward, and an infrared laser pops out in front of him. Shadow does a front flip over the laser, then a dodge roll as two more lasers came in front of him. Soon a large number of lasers came into existence and Shadow slid under them, and then jumping over another large number. Shadow was almost to the door, but then a highly large number of lasers came out and then moved towards Shadow with high speed. Shadow couldn't look quick enough to find an opening.

"Chaos Control!" Shadow shouted quickly.

Shadow warped through the lasers and reappeared on the other side, quickly going through the door. On the other side of the room, was Black Doom's Third Eye.

"Excellent, Shadow!" Third Eye said.

"It wasn't hard, now where's that Chaos Emerald?" Shadow asked.

"Just straight ahead."

"How come your Third Eye is here and not you?"

"I had to take care of some business personally… now go get that Chaos Emerald."

Shadow smirked, and ran forward.

Sonic ran out of the Station Square, going full speed. He knew Shadow was there. Only he could avoid the radar from pinpointing the current location. He couldn't help but to think about what he said back at the fortress.

"If he turns bad… I'll take full responsibility and take him out myself…" Sonic said to himself.

He regretted saying that now. He didn't want to take down Shadow, even if he's not his friend. Sonic wanted to help Shadow find out his past so he could understand him more. Sonic shook those thoughts out of his head and ran to a forest, heading to the Security Base. Sonic looked up at the sky, the red clouds started to die out and he saw the moon. He smiled, thinking that the Black Arms were starting to dim down. However, Sonic stared up, and saw a meteor coming straight at him.

"What the heck!" Sonic shouted, jumping up.

The meteor hit the ground and exploded. Sonic wondered where'd that come from and he looked up, and saw Black Doom. Sonic's eyes widened as he saw him and Black Doom grabbed him by the neck, slamming him down to the ground. He punched Sonic to the gut, and Sonic got the wind knocked out of him.

"Give me the Chaos Emerald!" Black Doom shouted.

"I don't have it!" Sonic replied.

"Lies!" Black Doom punched Sonic in the gut again, "Give it now!"

Sonic stayed silent. Black Doom began to get impatient and did a barrage of punches to Sonic's gut, and Sonic eventually coughed out blood. Black Doom grabbed Sonic by the neck, and inspected him.

"Hmm… such a resemblance to Shadow… maybe you could be telling the truth," he said, not finding any Chaos Emerald.

Sonic's body shivered due to pain, but he grinned, "Told ya… now how about you let me go…"

Black Doom grunted, "Now listen to me, hedgehog, don't try to get into my plans, otherwise I'll show you the true ultimate power in the universe."

Sonic's grin went away, "Ultimate power?" Sonic thought to himself.

Black Doom threw Sonic in the air, and then formed a meteor. He threw it to Sonic and it hit home without any effort. Sonic hit the ground, not moving. Black Doom disappeared after that. A few moments later, Sonic's eyes opened. He weakly digged under on of his gloves, and pulled out the blue Chaos Emerald. He smiled, then chuckled.

"I'm coming Shadow…" Sonic said, falling unconscious.