Thank you so much for reviews! Hope you guys enjoyed my reply to you guys as well!

A lot of people seem to like the idea of Zonic :D

"Shadow!" Sonic yelled with his emerald eyes searching for his rival. The red explosion quickly turned into thick and black smoke that covered half of the castle's ceiling. The smell was dry and gave out an ash scent throughout the dark castle ball room. Some people used this chance to escape the castle with their injured couples while some decided to stay behind in the castle for whatever the reason.

When the smoke started to clear out a little, there was a black figure that moved towards Sonic.

"I hope it's Shadow..." Sonic said to himself and got into his battle position just in case if it was Mephiles. It was confusing even to Sonic because Shadow and Mephiles had similar features except for their quill stripe colors.

"Shadow! It's you!" the blue hedgehog gave out a huge relief and relaxed his quills a little, "are you doing okay?"

"Don't mind me," Shadow answered but he sounded a little weary, "Did Mephiles fall down? I couldn't really detect him."

"I'm not too sure.." Sonic looked up at the ceiling again. To be honest, Sonic was only busy searching for Shadow when he used his chaos blast. "But I hate to break it to you, I don't think Mephiles would go down that easy," Sonic reminded Shadow.

"Which is why I need to find him," Shadow stated.

"Hey I'm here to help too you know!" Sonic fought back, "Don't use all your powers at once."

"I know what I'm doing."

This was one thing that even Sonic had hard time which was confronting Shadow's temper. The room cleared out a little and except for the party guests, Sonic and Shadow couldn't find Mephiles anywhere. The castle was really quiet and only the sound of the trees blowing in the wind just outside of the tree was echoing.

Something was really odd and few minutes later, Shadow realized something as he quickly jumped back from Sonic.

"S-Shadow what's wrong?!" this certainly surprised Sonic as the confused hedgehog tried to go back to Shadow but his rival stepped back even more.

"Don't come near me!" Shadow's stern voice scared Sonic a little, "Mephiles, he's probably hiding-"

"Under your shadow..."

"W-what?!" Sonic shifted his green emerald eyes towards Shadow's shadow and a hand literally came out from the shadowy figure and wrapped around Shadow's neck.

"Shadow!" Sonic quickly raced to Mephiles and Shadow as fast as possible. But no matter how fast Sonic raced his two feet, the blue hedgehog was not going anywhere! He was just running around in the same spot where he was standing before.

"What the...?" Sonic glanced at the floor to see a purple smog which glued Sonic to the floor. Mephiles just gave out a dark laughter at Sonic's poor situation while Shadow continued to gasp for air.

"So Shadow, how will you get out of this one? Should I just finish you now or play around with you some more?" Mephiles brought his mouth close to Shadow's ear which angered the black hedgehog even more. Shadow could just feel Mephiles' breath bothering his sensitive ears. Shadow shook his body a little and made a small effort to turn is head around to face Mephiles

"You forgot Mephiles, I am," Shadow used his elbow to easily break away from Mephiles' grasp and punched him right on the face, "the ultimate life form!"

"And I'm the ultimate hedgehog!" Sonic decided to use his spin dash to break free from Mephiles' trap and charged to hit Mephiles. The spiky blue ball landed right on Mephiles' stomach and continued to spin to produce more damage and impact.

"Hey Shadow! Catch!" Sonic kicked Mephiles to the side.

"Chaos Spear!" Shadow aimed right for Mephiles which made a direct hit. Both Sonic and Shadow saw Mephiles hurling down to the castle floor with a huge crash sound few seconds later. The silence filled the dark castle room and some people went closer, hoping to see the dead corpse of the villain.

"Do you think we did it?" Sonic came right next to Shadow and carefully checked Shadow's condition.

"No...something's wrong here," Shadow rubbed the area were Mephiles once grabbed, "he wasn't even putting up a fight. I dont think that was the real Mephiles."

"What?! Wait wait wait hold on!" Sonic jumped, "you mean if that was the clone then where is the real one?"

Shadow could feel his muscle getting all tensed again as he searched around the castle ball room. The people who were watching this battle scene also got the signal that they did not win the war yet. Just then, Shadow felt a strong sense of chaos energy pumping inside him out of nowhere . The cold yet electric sensation flowed inside him as the image of the purple chaos emerald passed through his mind .

"Watch out!" Shadow yelled and quickly grabbed Sonic and jumped into the air. Sonic's face heated up a little when Shadow's hands tightly gripped on to his blue body. Then when Sonic looked below, Mephiles popped out with the purple chaos emerald in his right hand.

"The purple gem!" Few people screamed in horror.

"How in the world did he find the chaos emerald so easily?!" Sonic fumed.

"Doesn't matter. We just have to get it back now," Shadow looked at Sonic "hope you learned how to land by yourself."

"Wait wha..?" Sonic's emerald colored eye opened widely as Shadow's hands released him into the from the mid air.

"Chaos Spear!" Shadow released large amount of his energy towards Mephiles.

"You think your little lightning can stop me?!" Mephiles chuckled and threw some purple shaped daggers to cancel out Shadow's attack. Shadow quickly realized that his spears were no longer effective to the enemy so he quickly changed his fighting method. Shadow skated right towards Mephiles and used numerous amounts of homing attacks but Mephilea dodged them easily.

Mean while Sonic tried to figure out what made Mephiles so powerful. He knew that Mephiles had powers but not this much.

'It must be that chaos emerald...' Sonic thought to himself, 'I need to steal it back. before Shadow uses all his energy!'

While Shadow and Mephiles continued to throw attacks to each other, Sonic swiftly ran right behind Mephiles.

"Hey Mephy~~~" Sonic pulled out his tongue and wagged his tail to mock the enemy, "Can you catch up with the sonic speed?"

"Grrrrr….. I killed you once and I can kill you again!" Mephiles yelled and in an instant the castle floor started to grow purple diamonds that were sharp as razors. By this time, most of the survivors from Mephiles' attack left the party castle and it was just the three hedgehogs and few dead corpses. Even with Mephiles' raging attack, Sonic was able to jump and dodge without any problem using his speed.

"Hold still!" Mephiles hissed.

"I will do that after-" Sonic spin dashed and quickly took the purple chaos emerald right from his hand, "I take this beauty!"

"What?! When in the world did you-"

"Chaos-" Shadow came out of nowhere and directly pinned down his copycat to the floor, "Blast!"

Another explosion came along and Sonic managed to get away from Shadow's chaos attack once again. As soon as the red explosion cleared out, Sonic ran right beside Shadow to support him just in case if the black hedgehog started to feel weak.

"Two chaos blast, some spears and beating up Mephiles," Sonic commented to Shadow, "tell me if you need a lift later buddy."

This time Shadow didn't even gave a nod or any type of remark to Sonic. He just kept panting and shook his head a little to keep him awake in this situation.

'Shadow...' Sonic gave a worried look to his friend, 'you don't look too good...'

Shadow noticed that Sonic's eyes were glued to his body, probably checking his condition but this time Shadow really felt like he would fall onto his knee any time soon. He felt so drained out his body was running extremely low. Shadow wanted to keep his mouth closed to not show any weakness but his body kept asking for air. Shadow's vision started to feel hazy and he needed tk blink a few times to get his perspective in focus. All of the sudden, Shadow felt a small burst of energy. A chaos energy.

"Here you go Shadow," Sonic gave Shadow the purple chaos emerald he took from Mephiles, "I think you need this more than me right now," the blue hedgehog winked.

Shadow wanted to say thank you but his stubborn personality didn't allow him to say those simple words. Instead, Shadow just nodded and took the emerald from Sonic's hand.

"Bravo, you took the emerald how wonderful," said Mephiles as he came out from the ashes, "I didn't expect to kill the ultimate life form just with two emeralds."

"What do you mean two?" Sonic chuckled, "Hope you know how to count Mephiles."

"This is my second one. Your lovely friends Tails and Knuckles handed to me to save their pitiful lives," Mephils gave out a dark laughter and presented the white emerald.

"W-what?! You attacked my friends?!" This time Sonic completely lost his temper and was about to charge at Mephiles but Shadow quickly grabbed Sonic's tail to restrain him.

"Calm down," Shadow whispered.

"I shall return for that purple emerald later," Mephiles used his white chaos emerald to open another dimension, "I am off to collect the other chaos emerald. Until we meet again Sonic and my dear Shadow."

With that, Mephiles entered the green and purple colored doorway to another world. The dimension portal did not close itself which meant that Mephiles wanted the two hedgehogs to follow right behind him to continue his plan.

'I have to follow him,' Shadow thought to himself.

"T-Tails...what if something horrible happened to him?!" Sonic paced around and couldn't calm down. All different types of situations were running around in his head like..what if Mephiles injured Tails so much to the point where Sonic needed to rush him to the hospital? It would be all Sonic's fault because he was the one that carelessly left the white emerald back in his world.

Shadow on the other hand really didn't care about Sonic's friend since that was not his concern but the black rival did somewhat showed a very very tiny concern to the blue hedgehog. Shadow also noticed to himself that the only reason Sonic was in this mess was because of him and Mephiles.

"But I never asked for his help..." Shadow trailed off but kept his glowing red eyes were on to Sonic. The poor blue hedgehog looked as if he was on the edge of breaking down because something really bad could have happened to Tails. Wait...didn't Tails give some kind of device so Sonic and Tails can communicate with each other?

"Hey," Shadow tried to get Sonic's attention, "stop running around and listen. Don't you have something that can transfer messages to your friend?"

Sonic stopped instantly and looked at his peach wrist and face palmed himself. Of course he had a device to talk with Tails! Tails gave one to him before they left his world.

"You're the best, Shadow!" Sonic chirped and quickly pressed the buttons to connect with Tails in his world. To Sonic's relief, it only took few seconds for someone to answer but it was not Tails.

"Hello? Sonic?"

"Knuckles?! Hey I am so glad to hear you and all but where's Tails?" Sonic sounded desperate.

"You would never guess what happened," Knuckles panted, "Mephiles came here and tried to take the emerald and asked us about where you and Shadow went and-"

"Knuckles! What happened to Tails?" Sonic interrupted. Shadow was surprised to see Sonic showing some little rage to his close friend.

"We are in the hospital but-"

"What?!" Sonic wanted to pull out his quills.

"But don't worry! He survived but we needed to give Mephiles the emerald in exchange to stop messing around with us. Hope you aren't too mad about the chaos emerald, Sonic."

"Ha...Knuckles," sighed Sonic, "You two are important. Much more important than that stupid problem causing emerald," said Sonic.

"Good and don't worry about Tails. As soon as he gets better, he can operate that machine to bring you back to this world, Sonic."

"No let Tails get his full rest. I have one emerald so maybe I can ask Shadow to chaos control us back and- " Sonic was about to say he wanted to go back as soon as possible to greet Tails and Knuckles. He also wanted to check if his friends were not too hurl but..something or someone was stopping the blue hero.

"Hey Knuckles, I'll contact you back really quick. I just need to take care of something."

Before Knuckles had time to say anything or even ask questions, Sonic turned off the watch looking device and was lost in his own thought. It was not like Sonic didn't want to see Tails... but he also didn't want to leave Shadow by himself either. Sure even though the stubborn black hedgehog claims that he can handle on his own but for how long? Sonic was pretty sure Shadow wanted to pursue Mephiles and not return to their world any time soon.

Shadow seemed to have lost a lot of energy during that short battle but his motivation and anger was still there. It was clear that Sonic wanted to go home and visit Tails while Shadow wanted to follow the portal that Mephiles left behind

Shadow noticed that Sonic simply stood there and didn't say a single word. But Shadow heard the whole conversation as well and understood that Sonic wanted to go home right this instant. The awkward silence continued for what seemed like forever until Shadow tapped Sonic for the first time.

"Mephiles left the portal opened to another dimension," Shadow pointed at the dark vortex, "like what you said, I can use chaos control with one emerald but.."

Sonic didn't like where this was going.

"My energy is running slightly low," which was a lie because Shadow had to use every bit of energy to stand straight at this point. His energy was more than slightly running low.

Sonic didn't say anything and just paid attention.

"I can chaos control but only one of us. Not only that, even if I had full chaos energy with me, traveling through different dimension requires more than one emerald but if it is just one of us... I can probably manage it."

Sonic's mouth was tightly closed and this annoyed Shadow even more. Sure, when he wanted the blue hedgehog to talk, he just has to do the exact opposite

"Are you listening to me?!" Shadow shook Sonic's shoulder and panted little, "when I say chaos control, quickly take the emerald from me. You'll return to your world and I can continue my own business with Mephiles, got it?!"

Shadow looked straight into Sonic's green eyes but didn't receive anything. Not even a simple nod or some ridiculous comments that Sonic usually make. What was wrong with him? Shadow actually decided to accommodate Sonic but if he refuses to follow his command then what was he supposed to do? Since Sonic didn't say anything, Shadow took that silence as an okay sign and proceeded his plan. The black hedgehog held the purple emerald in his hand and the jewel began to glow like a bright sunlight in a night time.

"Chaos...!"

"Shadow! Stop!" Sonic yelled and unknowingly pushed Shadow to the hard floor. The black hedgehog yelped a little and the fall of the impact caused him the drop the chaos emerald right next to him. Shadow snorted and tried to get back the emerald but Sonic crawled and pinned Shadow to the floor. Shadow never thought Sonic had this much strength because he couldn't do anything under Sonic's grasp. Or maybe it was because Shadow was too weak to fight off Sonic.

"What are you doing?!" Shadow growled and tilted his head upward to face Sonic.

"I...you...you can't chaos control just me you know!" Sonic's face came closer to Shadow then he had expected. The dark hedgehog blinked for a second and realized that both of their faces were very close so he moved his head to the side. Thos caused Sonic to slightly stand up to avoid Shadow's spiky quills.

"Say something that makes sense to me," said Shadow even though his head was turned away, one of his ears was pointing to Sonic. A clear sign that he was listening.

"Hey I am not leaving you alone to have all the fun with Mephiles!" Sonic's eyes softened.

"I know how much your friends mean to you" Shadow's head still tilted to the side, "I don't understand why you won't let me."

"Well Shadow... u-um..." Sonic stuttered, "I want to...to stay here and help you out that's all."

"..." Shadow frowned a little and thought Sonic would say something more but the blue hero remained silent. "If you think I can't handle this situation on my own then-"

"That's just it Shadow," Sonic calmly interrupted, "I'm not judging you in anyway honest!" Sonic waved his two gloved hands back and forth in mid air, "I'm pretty sure the ultimate life form can take of this situation by himself but..."

"But?" Shadow narrowed his eyes a little more and this intimated Sonic slightly.

"But I... think t-two hedgehogs are better than one don't ya think?" Sonic ran his hand through the blue quills. His fingers traced one of the large quill that was right in the center to distract Shadow's red orb eye from staring at him.

"Excuse me?" asked Shadow.

Sonic really wished Shadow would stop pushing his buttons and just drop this conversation already. Usually when Sonic offered his help people would be cheerfully saying thank you and be all happy about it without asking any questions. But this particular black hedgehog was another story. Shadow crossed his arms to show Sonic that he was still waiting for him to respond

"Look, why you gotta be so cold? I just want to help my friend, that's all."

"I am not in any part of your friendship circle," Shadow sighed, "and I also know that your real friends are waiting for you at the other world. Mephiles is not really interested in world domination... yet. It looks like he just wants to pick a fight with me which is none of your business."

Sonic's blue ears folded a little and his arms weakly dropped to his sides.

"I'll let you know when it becomes your business," Shadow stated.

"And when would that be?" Sonic rolled his eyes.

"When it involves two things. Your friends or this pathetic planet," Shadow faced Sonic directly and he realize that Sonic was still sitting on top of him. But it looked like the blue hedgehog didn't want to get off until this issue was solved.

"You forgot one more thing!" Sonic exclaimed. He realized that Shadow was getting a little uncomfortable with their physical position so he quickly got off and gave his rival a helping hand.

But Shadow just continued to have his back on the cool castle floor and gave Sonic a questioning look.

"What did I forget?" Shadow asked.

Sonic chuckled and grabbed Shadow's hand. He then easily pulled Shadow up to his feet. Sonic noticed how low energy Shadow had since it wasn't hard for Sonic to forcefully push him back up. Either that or Shadow was light as a feather!

"Shadow the Hedgehog!" Sonic said proudly and gave his signature smile.

"..."

"If Shadow is involved then like it or not, it is also my problem."

Shadow let out a deep breath and thought about everything he went through today. It started out as him skating around to hide from GUN, meeting Mephiles, saving the pink hedgehog and allowing Sonic to follow his mission. But Shadow had to admit, it was a little..well nice to have another companion on his mission. When he was alone and running away from the GUN force it did annoy him but he was still scared. He didn't know what would happen to him if he gets capture.

'He is a little pain to tag along with...' Shadow looked at Sonic who stood there with a smile, 'but it is nice to have someone who thinks I'm not causing all these destructions. Not to mention he helped me to get one of Mephiles' emeralds back.'

Shadow recalled when he first met Sonic during the Black Doom's invasion to this planet. He was skating around until Sonic appeared out of nowhere and decided to follow Shadow until the end.

Shadow also thought back to the recent Sonic's 21 birthday party where Sonic just came to have a small talk with him after he said goodbye to the classic Sonia from the past.

'Maybe it's time I let Sonic enter my boundary a little...' Shadow trailed off. His relationship with Sonic did changed a lot since the Ark incident and the amnesia he went through. In fact all this time maybe Shadow was more stubborn then Sonic after all.

Shadow's face heated a little, a clear sign that he was embarrassed and said, "...Fine."

Sonic twitched his ears and faced brightened up a little. Sonic wanted to make sure he heard what Shadow said.

"What was that Shadow?" Sonic asked.

Shadow looked down to avoid Sonic's eyes, "Fine. If you really want to follow me around then go ahead."

"Yipee! Yes!" Sonic jumped high into the air, "don't worry Shadow you're not going to regret this decision, I promise!"

"I hope you're the type of hedgehog that keeps promises..."

"Hey~ this is Sonic the Hedgehog we're talking about here," Sonic pointed at himself.

"Yes of course, our favorite hero," Shadow said with sarcasm but also with a small smirk.

"Hehhehheh funny," Sonic laughed softly but his eyes instantly caught Shadow's gentle swaying motion. "You should really sit down. Even the ultimate life form needs a rest now and then especially without the limiters."

"There's no time for rest," Shadow refused but didn't push Sonic away when the blue hedgehog came to support him to stand straight, "We have to follow Mephiles, now."

"Okay Mr. Business," Sonic smiled, "but.. I think you need to pick up your ring at that costume store. If we knew Mephiles was here crashing the party, we would have never bought these silly clothes."

"If he doesn't give the rings back then maybe I can do it by force.." Shadow whispered and he unknowingly leaned more of his weight to Sonic.

"Or we can tell him the truth about why you need the ring perhaps?" Sonic suggested, "either ways, I'm pretty sure we can get it back no problem!"

Shadow looked around to see the portal that Mephiles left.

"Do you think that will stay open?" Sonic asked and it took a while for Shadow to reply.

"If I know Mephiles, that thing will be open until I enter. It could be a trap but... what can I do."

"Okay I guess we better get you ring and-"

"Stop!" Someone yelled and both Sonic and Shadow turned around.

"What the...?" Shadow opened his widely as he witnessed another hedgehog that looked had exact same features like Sonic, not to mention he dad the same voice as Sonic, but was wearing a helmet, some kind of weird uniform looking suit and had a handcuff in his right hand. This guy was the exact copy of Sonic the Dedgehog except had more serious looks because he had his eyes narrowed.

"You are under arrest for violating the rules of traveling through dimensions without a permit, Zhadow the wanted hedgehog," the cop looking hedgehog took off his helmet to reveal his blue quills. Now he really looked like Sonic just with a cop suit

"Zhadow?" Shadow questioned and backed away from this so called cop.

"Zonic wait!" Sonic stepped right between the two hedgehog "this isn't what it looks like!"

"Step away Sonic prime or I'll have to arrest you also for working with Zhadow. I expected better from-"

"He's not Zhadow, Zonic!" Sonic interrupted, "This is Shadow from my world and we're sorry for violating No Zone policy but we have really really really good reasons."

"You know him?" Shadow directed his attention to Sonic

"Sonic prime, if this is not Zhadow then... what's going on here," Zonic placed his helmet on the floor and came closer to Sonic, "you know it's illegal to travel to different zones. You can really rupture different zones."

"I can explain," Sonic weakly smiled, "but put away that handcuff first." Sonic pointed to the silver rings Zonic had in his hand.

"Alright, Sonic prime. You always have my full trust," Zonic closed his eyes and placed the handcuff into his pocket.

"Oh and by the way, long time no see, Zonic!" Sonic reached out and tried to start a hand shake with his other counterpart.

In No Zone, Zonic is known to smile very rarely unlike Sonic who flashes his smile at everyone he sees. But even Zonic couldn't help but to smile a little when he met Sonic the Hedgehog.

"Good to see you to, Sonic prime," Zonic shook, "and my apologies for mistaking you as Zhadow," Zonic bowed

Shadow didn't say anything but nodded his head in approval. Great... he was already tired and this new hedgehog who looked and sounded just like Sonic just had to jump in.

A person who reads archie? (?) comic suggested me to use the label Sonic prime for Sonic so here you go~