Was Bramble having some sort of weird dream? Were his eyes playing tricks on him? Or did Shadow seem to have genuinely grown a Black Arm's tail?

Bramble sat up from his laying position to get a better view. He rubbed his eyes and blinked a couple of times, making sure what he was seeing was genuinely real. It seemed it was in fact, very real. The Mobian's rather short tail was now replaced with a long, thin black one with a sharp red tip. Bramble felt utterly baffled by this, and was left to wonder what had happened to cause this. He decided to teleport to Daisy, hoping she'd know what had happened.

"You're never taking me alive, Crimson!" Daisy growled viciously at Bramble as soon as he appeared. She was then overcome with relief when she saw it was Bramble, and she sighed with a smile on her face. She let out an embarrassed laugh. "Sorry! I thought you were Crimson!"

Bramble eyed her carefully. "There's no need to be so paranoid. You know I won't let him harm any of you."

Daisy averted her gaze "I know, but.. it's scary." she confessed. "He could kill us.. whenever he wants!" her voice trembled.

"I won't let him." Bramble insisted. "I would've thought you'd be less paranoid now that are supposed prophesied hero has come to the save day." Bramble remarked.

Daisy looked at Bramble again, a huge grin on her face. "Of course I'm happy! I couldn't be happier!" she insisted. "But I'm still unsure exactly how the events are going to plan out."

Bramble nodded, but he brought the focus of the conversation back to what he came for. "Something rather peculiar has happened to Shadow, he seems to have mysteriously grown a Darkling's tail in the middle of the night.

Daisy's eyes widened. "Are you serious?"

"No, I'm joking, obviously." Bramble rolled his eyes. "I suggest you take a look." he added.

She nodded vigorously before teleporting, and Bramble followed her back to the cave.

"WHAT DID YOU DO TO ME, YOU SCOUNDREL?" Shadow was lashing out at Glacier, the poor Black Arm was squishing himself in the corner of the cave, as if he was hoping the walls would somehow engulf him.

"I don't know what happened!" he managed to say in amongst all his trembling.

"YOU REALLY THINK I BELIEVE THAT? YOU INSOLENT PEST!" Chaos Energy was sparking off of Shadow's body. It was at this moment he noticed Daisy and Bramble. "WHAT ARE YOU ALL PLANNING?" he hissed and glared at them with malice.

"I saw you with your.. new tail, and I got Daisy to figure out what's going on." Bramble explained. "And please step away from Glacier, you'll make him cry."

"Get me Rouge and Omega!" Shadow commanded.

Bramble sighed and disappeared. He appeared again a second later with the rest of Team Dark and Violet.

"What's going on?" Violet growled in annoyance. Her eyes then fell upon Shadow's tail. "What happened to him?" she asked with disdain.

Rouge's voice was faint. "Shadow? What's going on?"

"That's what I want to know!" Shadow huffed with crossed arms.

"You will know if you let me take a look." Daisy pointed out with a smile and tilt of her head.

"For all I know, you could have done this! Why should I trust you?" Shadow became quickly enraged again.

"Why would they transform your tail of all things? Give them some credit." Rouge sighed in exasperation.

The amount of Chaos Energy around Shadow only intensified. "Who's side are you on?"

"We're supposed to all be on the same side." Rouge pointed out.

Shadow flicked his ear and let out a "hmph." He took in a deep breath, and turned back to Daisy. "Have a look at it then!" he huffed.

Daisy cautiously approached, she was flinching as if she expected to be attacked. She finally got to where she needed to be, and began to fiddle with Shadow's tail with trembling hands. "Seems like a genuine Black Arm tail." she finally said.

"Will it grow back if we cut it off?" Ivy suddenly asked.

Daisy pouted as she thought for a second. "Try it."

Before Shadow could object, Ivy formed something looking like a knife out of Chaos Energy. He quickly used it to slash into Shadow's tail, cutting it right off. The Mobian winced. "Was that necessary?" he growled.

"For the sake of research, yes." Daisy said, although she was focusing on the area the tail once was. It began to glow, and sure enough it sprouted back again, like it had never been cut off. "It would seem your tail regenerates, just like ours do." she told Shadow, looking up to see the hedgehog's face.

"Great." Shadow said sarcastically through gritted teeth.

"So it seems like we can definitely say it's a tail like ours, but the reason for the sudden change is something I don't know how to figure out." Daisy said apologetically.

Bramble, Daisy, and Shadow, report to me, we have important issues to discuss.

Crimson's announcement rang through Daisy's head. She was confused, they usually didn't have meetings in the morning. Daisy prayed that nothing bad had happened. "What do you think he wants?" she asked Bramble.

"Might have something to do with the supposed 'big day' Crimson had mentioned." Bramble glanced at Shadow's tail. "How are we going to explain that to Crimson?"

Daisy shrugged uneasily. "We can't really say much, can we?"

"Not really." Bramble's voice was not much more than a breath. "But Crimson will want a better explanation."

"He'll just have to shut up and deal with it." Shadow then teleported away. Soon after, Daisy and Bramble followed.

They kneeled by the table once again, while Crimson was sitting on his throne. A grin spread on his face when he saw Shadow. "We have some-" the red Darkling's gaze fell upon Shadow's tail, and his eyes widened in shock. "What the heck happened?"

Shadow glared at Crimson. "That's what I want to know."

Crimson turned his attention to Daisy. "Is this the start of a full transformation?" he asked, with what sounded like an eager tone.

Shadow's face became pale. He sure hoped that this wasn't a part of an entire transformation. He didn't want to be a Black Arm, he was perfectly fine as a hedgehog. The thought made his head whirl.

"I honestly don't know." Daisy shook her head, her voice trembling slightly.

Sage glared at Shadow suspiciously, but Maple sat up straighter, looking intrigued. Shadow didn't want to know what she was thinking.

"Regardless of these recent developments," Crimson continued on, "we have more important matters to deal with. Watching you fight yesterday was rather enthralling, I must admit. You have more control over Chaos Energy than I thought you would due to your Mobian body. You can pull of Chaos Blasts like its nothing, even I struggle with that. However, I still believe there's a lot you still need to learn. There's more you need to control before you're truly powerful."

Shadow's eyes narrowed. "That's what I'm here for." He had to remember to keep his facade up. In reality, he was hesitant to learn more about his powers. One thing he'd always been told by Gerald how easily it was to get corrupted by power, and he had warned him not to go too deep into it.

"Indeed." Crimson dipped his head. "Bramble, get Ivy for me."

Bramble vanished, and then appeared again with Ivy at his side. The green Darkling had the peculiar misty look in his eyes, and Shadow realised that the Black Arm was pretending to be under Crimson's control like the others.

"As the best fighter amongst us," Crimson began, addressing Ivy, "I want you to train Shadow, he's returned to us, and wants to unlock his full power."

Ivy bowed down, when he spoke, Shadow noticed his voice was forced. "Of course, my lord."

Crimson grinned. "Bramble, you can oversee this, bring anyone you see fit to help."

With one last nod, Bramble stands up and beckons Shadow and Ivy out of the room. They then teleported to an empty space of just rock and fog, far away from the rows of caves. Sun, Primrose, and Glacier also appeared, as Bramble probably told them to come through the hive mind.

They seemed to have stumbled upon the area Violet, Rouge, and Omega had resided. Violet lay 15 feet away from Rouge and Omega, and Rouge was using Omega as a pillow as she slept. Omega's red eyes immediately focused on Shadow's tail.

"Don't say a word." the hedgehog warned before Omega could comment on it.

The misty glow from Ivy's eyes faded, and he began to stretch. "I've been waiting for a good fight!" he grinned.

Primrose walked over to Violet and shook her on the shoulder. "Wake up!"

Violet was actually already awake, she just had her face buried in her hands. She let out a muffled groan.

"There's going to be fighting, so you might as well get up." Primrose warned.

After a moment of hesitation, Violet got up on her feet with a grumble. Omega had poked Rouge on the shoulder until she woke up, and now the bat was frantically asking Omega why Shadow had a Black Arm tail, and all the robot could do was shrug.

Daisy teleported to Bramble's side. "We should have practically the whole day. Crimson isn't planning to check up either."

Bramble nodded and looked away. "Good." There was a pause as Bramble and Daisy stood next to each other, looking straight ahead. He then turned to her. "You should go back to your cave."

"I-I can stay!" she insisted. "I told Crimson I was going to find any prophecies, so he won't come looking for me!"

"You're using that excuse too often, he's going to get suspicious."

Daisy was indignant. "I need to know what's going on! There's no point in me being in the resistance if I don't know the plans!"

Bramble sighed, gazing deep into her eyes. He finally spoke. "We can't risk losing you."

Daisy averted her gaze. "I know." she choked out. She said nothing more and turned her attention to Shadow and Ivy.

Ivy began to circle around Shadow, looking him up and down. Shadow had his fists clenched, expecting to be attacked at any moment. Everyone else stood awkwardly to the side, not really sure of what was going on and giving each other uneasy glances.

Ivy's claw scraped against Shadow's inhibitor ring on his right wrist. "I see what's going on."

"What's going on?"

"These rings must restrict your power. It's been bugging me for a while. I sensed you had a lot of power before, and I mean a lot, but something had to be restricting it. Your rings seem to be doing so." Ivy explained. "Although I suppose that's probably for the best because with the amount of power I sense from you, you'd probably blow up if you removed all of them." There was a hint of a chuckle.

Shadow couldn't help but gulp slightly and found himself staring at the rings around his ankles, the rings he refused to take off.

"Before I think you have a chance of defeating Crimson, you need to learn to control energy with some of them off."

Shadow shook his head. "I remove them only when absolutely necessary!" he snapped.

He hadn't confessed his fear of his own power to anyone before, but there was always a feeling of fear lingering inside him. Dread was constantly wrapped around his heart, always worrying that one day, his own power will take control of him. The thing that scared him most was that he had no idea what would happen after that, he only knew he'd lose his own consciousness, and he'd become nothing but an empty shell for his own Chaos Energy to do as it pleased.

Not many knew this, maybe even Knuckles was unaware, but Chaos Energy had a mind of its own. 'Chaos Control' was a rather inappropriate name, Shadow had always thought. You didn't control it, but rather it worked with you, only if it wanted to. That was why some days his Chaos Energy was weaker than others, some days it just didn't want to comply with him. Even though it might work with him often, it soon became common knowledge that it was always secretly waiting for an opportunity to take over.

Ivy suddenly stepped back, a look of concern on his face. "Chill, dude."

"What?" Shadow raised a brow in confusion, until his cheeks turned pale when he realised he had been in the hive mind the entire time, and everyone had just heard his thoughts.

Daisy came up to him and patted him on the shoulder. "You shouldn't be that scared! Oh, you poor thing!" she exclaimed, rubbing his shoulder and gazing at him with sympathy.

Shadow surprisingly didn't find himself pulling away, but he still stared at her awkwardly. Realisation suddenly swept over him in a comforting wave. These were creatures that might actually understand, maybe he will actually learn more about his powers, instead of it all being a part of facade.

"There's really nothing to be worried about!" Sun insisted, trying to cheer Shadow up.

"Well, I mean.." Primrose began, with teeth clenched and her shoulders shrugging slightly, "it kind of is a thing to be worried about."

Sun gave her a glare with a weird smile that somehow perfectly managed to communicate: 'you're making it worse, so could you please just shut your mouth!'

Primrose quickly understood and obliged by closing her mouth.

"While it isn't something we often worry about because we know how to not make it happen, we still know that power corruption still indeed, exists. We are all somewhat susceptible to it." Bramble tilted his head.

"Like Crimson." Violet grumbled.

"Crimson was stupid! He brought it upon himself, and now look where we are!" Bramble snapped.

Shadow wanted to ask more, but the Darkling continued on. "Ivy here, is able to use quite a huge amount of Chaos Energy without being corrupted, it's quite admirable, and I've wondered myself about his methods."

Ivy turned to Shadow with a grin. "Don't worry, you'll be safe with me!"

Shadow wasn't exactly sure if he believed these words, although did he really have a choice?

"Look, I know you don't want to do this, but you're going to have take the rings off. We can start with just one! Get you used to it!" The Darkling tried to coax.

Letting out a slow exhale, he spoke. "Fine. Just be warned I'm incredibly weakened after a certain amount of time." Shadow's voice cracked on the words slightly.

Ivy's grin only grew wider. "Then it's about time we changed that."

Glacier's voice sounded out, barely more than a whisper. "I assume it would be best if we moved away?"

"Yeah.. you might get blown up otherwise."

Everyone vanished then, teleporting Rouge and Omega with them before they got to say anything. He felt somewhat relieved that they wouldn't witness this training session. He didn't exactly trust himself.

"I suggest you take that bad boy off then," Ivy gestured to the ring.

Shadow took a deep breath in, and a deep breath out. It's just one, he kept telling himself, It's only one ring, you've taken two off before, you shouldn't be worried. Yet the tremble in his hands as he took off the inhibitor ring was undeniable. He tightly shut his eyes.

There was a large, electrifying burning under his fur, and sure enough he could feel energy bursting from him like a massive flame. Yet for some reason, he refused to open his eyes. Shadow used to be comfortable with taking off two, but his fear of his power had increased over time. Now he was at the point where he could barely take off one without feeling petrified. Shadow didn't even have any idea why this fear increased, which somehow made it feel a whole lot worse.

"Open your eyes." It was evident Ivy was trying to be gentle, but he couldn't disguise his slight air of impatience.

After a moments hesitation, Shadow forced them open. What was he even expecting to see? All he was met with was Chaos Energy swirling vigorously around him. He could make out Ivy in between all this, he was standing in front of him with one hand on his hips.

"Not that bad, is it?"

Shadow didn't speak, refusing to give the comment the dignity of a response.

White fangs flashed as Ivy grinned. "Send a beam my way, I want to see how powerful it is."

Shadow looked at Ivy like he was crazy, but he slowly raised his arm. Chaos Energy was then shot out of his hand in a large beam, completely engulfing the Black Arm in a bright yellow light. Shadow's mouth was agape as he realised that Ivy didn't even attempt to defend himself. He just stood there, practically embracing the attack with the grin still on his face.

Shadow quickly discontinued the beam. Was this guy insane? Ivy, for some inexplicable reason, didn't even flinch, in fact his smile had become wider. Red eyes focused into Ivy's green ones. They were glowing, and the pupils were narrow, they reminded Shadow of a snake. "Y-yes, this is power!" Ivy exclaimed, his voice had an echo and even more of a technological sound to it. Chaos Energy smoked from the edges of his eyes.

Shadow stepped back. He absorbed my attack.

Ivy's eyes were wild. "That all you got?" his voice was raised in challenge and aggression.

Shadow didn't even get a chance to breathe before Ivy sent a large, blaring Chaos Spear into Shadow's chest. Shadow was knocked over by the force, and the energy pierced his skin. After a growl of pain, the hedgehog leapt up into a quickly spinning ball in a charging swirl of energy. He dashed forward into Ivy, leaving a blazing trail of Chaos Energy through the sky. As soon as Shadow came into contact with Ivy, he felt something rip out of his chest. Shadow uncurled from his ball as his limbs began to feel weak, they dangled uselessly. Shadow's vision was starting to blur, but he could clearly see a yellow trail pouring out of his chest. Numbness spread through Shadow's body.

He's absorbing my energy.

When Ivy was done with this, Shadow dropped down like a helpless rag doll. He could only just about make out the hazy figure of Ivy through his blurry vision.

"Ultimate life form, huh? Prove it!" Ivy's voice sounded like there were thousands talking in unison.

ANOTHER CLIFFHANGER BOIS! I FEEL LIKE A STEREOTYPICAL VILLAIN, TWIRLING THEIR MOUSTACHE XD

WHY HAS IVY APPARENTLY GONE CRAZY? WHY HAS SHADOW GROWN A BLACK ARM'S TAIL? WHY DOES DAISY ALWAYS INSIST ON NOT STAYING IN HER CAVE? WHY IS CRIMSON NOT QUESTIONING ANYTHING? WILL ROUGE AND OMEGA EVER GET TO SAY ANYTHING BEFORE THEY'RE TELEPORTED AWAY AGAIN? FIND OUT SOME TIME IN THE FUTURE OF THIS STORY!

I'M GONNA DO SOMETHING A LITTLE DIFFERENT HERE, AS A RANDOM THING, I'LL GIVE YA SOME FACTS ON MY OCS. DON'T WORRY ABOUT SPOILERS, THIS ALL FOR FUN XD:

PRIMROSE HAS MANAGED TO KEEP IVY IN THE FRIEND ZONE FOR ABOUT 9 MILLION YEARS. PRESS F TO PAY RESPECTS TO THE POOR GUY. :'(

SUN, BRAMBLE, IVY, AND VIOLET ARE ALL IN THE SAME LITTER, AND THEY HAVE SOME STRONG SIBLING RIVALRIES AND WILL OFTEN RANDOMLY BREAK OUT INTO FIGHTS JUST FOR THE HECK OF IT, ALTHOUGH BRAMBLE HAS BEEN JOINING IN LESS AND LESS WITH THESE COMPETITIONS.

GLACIER AND PRIMROSE ARE SIBLINGS IN A SEPARATE LITTER TO BRAMBLE, SUN, IVY, AND VIOLET. THEY HONESTLY DON'T HAVE THAT CLOSE OF A BOND, BUT HAVE MORE OF A MUTUAL RESPECT.

GLACIER IS GAY, YEP, BET YA DIDN'T EXPECT A GAY OC XD IT ISN'T A MASSIVE PART OF THE STORY, SO THIS ISN'T REALLY PART OF THIS STORY. BUT I ASSURE ALL YOU LGBTQ+ PEOPLE WILL GET THE REPRESENTATION YOU DESERVE. THAT AND ALSO THE FACT I JUST WANTED TO WRITE A GAY CHARACTER BECAUSE I'D NEVER WRITTEN ONE BEFORE.

DAISY WAS THE FIRST CHARACTER I THOUGHT OF, AND I PUT A LOT OF THOUGHT INTO HER CHARACTER. SHE'S GOT A LOT IN STORE XD

REVIEWS AND CRITIQUES ARE ALWAYS APPRECIATED!

HAVE A NICE DAY FOLKS!