Hey guys! It took me a little longer than I'd wanted to get this chapter out, but I wanted this to be really good. I hope it was worth the wait for you guys.

"Eggman?" Sonic gasped. Shadow brushed Sonic aside."I've got this." Shadow charged up a powerful blast made of raw chaos energy. "Chaos-SPEAR!" Shadow threw the shot at the Doctor, but noticed a moment too late that Eggman wasn't afraid. The blast passed straight through Eggman as both Sonic and Shadow realized they'd been duped by a hologram. "Sonofa- let's get moving." Shadow grunted.

Sonic and Shadow both swept the place at a faster speed than Eggman could have possibly escaped at, but both came up empty. Shadow shook his head. "I don't understand. Why leave a hologram here?" Sonic shrugged. "Maybe it's an accidental leftover from one of Eggman's previous attempts to kill me." Shadow grimaced. "If that's still left over, then what about the rest of the-"

Thousands of bystanders then watched as the building exploded. Shadow quickly grabbed Sonic and teleported him away from the explosion, but it was too late.

Sonic was already dead.

Shadow sighed, laying Sonic's body to rest on the ground. "It was- an honor to fight by your side. You were a worthy challenge. Goodbye." Shadow picked up Sonic's body so that he could be buried on Mobius.

How was he ever going to explain this? Worst of all, how would he tell Judy and Tails? Shadow felt a pang of remorse that Sonic had never even been able to begin a relationship with Judy. It was his fault that Sonic was dead. His fault for leading him into that building. And he was going to make it right. He was going to bring Sonic back, at whatever cost. Even if it killed him. It's what Maria would have wanted.

So he ran. He ran as fast as he could, dropping Sonic's body to the ground. He began to reach speeds he'd never hit before, and eventually he found himself circling the planet about once every 56.5 seconds. After roughly 74 loops, Shadow jumped into the air, flying skyward far faster than any aircraft. "CHAOS-CONTROL!" Shadow yelled as he tore open a portal, flying backwards through time. Back to Mons's speech. Shadow attempted to stop there, to break free from the portal's hold. But he couldn't. He kept travelling back, back further, until-

The Experiment.

Mons couldn't believe Eggman had defeated him like this. April was lost to him, Eggman had nearly eradicated his powers through various means of torture, and now he was being forced to open a slew of portals that would plunge the world into chaos. But Mons could feel his powers coming back, ever so slightly. When the time was right, he was going to stop Eggman- at whatever cost necessary.

One thing Mons had not predicted, however, was the black hedgehog careening out of a portal straight into him.

Shadow knocked Mons to the ground, shocked that he had traveled back to this exact moment in time, at this location. If even the time-stream wasn't right, then the world truly had been changed forever by this experiment. Shadow picked up a gun lying on the table. In his current state, it would only take one shot to kill Mons. He could stop this whole thing from happening. But something was stopping him. As Shadow came closer and closer to eradicating the current timeline, memories started flowing away. It was time to put the world back into place. But then he remembered.

Judy Hopps. She meant the world to Sonic. And Sonic wouldn't want to come back to the world if she wasn't in it. Shadow grimaced, setting down the gun and teleporting himself into the still-open portal. He pushed himself to go forward in time. He could see fragments of the timeline, and finally Mons's speech came into view. Shadow teleported again, sending him straight out of the portal and right over Mons's head as he began his speech.

Shadow, who was also sitting in the audience, looked bewildered. Gazelle looked over at him. "Something wrong?" she whispered. Shadow shook his head. "I thought I saw myself for a moment, right above Mons." Gazelle smiled. "Don't worry about that. There's no one who can be just like you." Behind the bushes, Shadow smiled. Perhaps he'd made his own life better as well.

He waited for Mons's speech to finish, watching as Sonic and his counterpart sped off. Now was the chance. Shadow chased after his counterpart, kicking him out of the way and chasing after Sonic. Shadow saw his counterpart fade into thin air, as the current Shadow took control over himself in the current timeline. Sonic noticed, and came to a halt. "Whoa, what the h-" Shadow kicked him in the gut.

"Don't you have better things to do than race around foolishly? You have the girl of your dreams waiting for you, and instead you still insist on running away?" Sonic stood up, saluted, and dashed off to find Judy. Shadow breathed a sigh of relief. Disaster averted. He even laughed, realizing how insane the odds Eggman's leftover trap would have teleported to the world which Zootopia came from.

But yet it had happened. And, due to the changes in the timeline, it was still standing. Shadow groaned. He would still have to deal with that. But it could wait. No one was going to enter there for quite some time, judging by the fact no one seemed to care. Shadow dashed back to where Mons had just finished his speech,

and found himself standing right next to Gazelle. "Hello, my friend. In return for your assistance, I was wondering if you- wanted to enjoy a leisurely activity tonight." Gazelle said to him. Shadow couldn't believe his ears. "I'd rather nothing more." he said with a smile. He looked over to see Sonic looking rather perplexed. "Hold on, I should deal with this." Shadow said as he walked over to Sonic.

"You remember, don't you?" Sonic shrugged. "What, the changes in the timeline? Yeah, I remember. We were on the planet Zootopia comes from, and we found this building, and it was rigged to blow- yeah, my memory totally checks out after that for some reason." Shadow, never one to sugar-coat anything, casually said "That's because you died. And so I saved you. You're welcome." Sonic slowly nodded. "Oh, that explains." he said, not feeling like making any snarky remarks about death. He remembered something Shadow had said, how he'd promised to ask Judy out-

Sonic felt a lump in his throat as he realized what he was about to do. It would be easy if he asked Amy, or even Blaze, but- this- this was different. Sonic casually hung around where Judy was standing for a moment, and finally plucked up the courage to ask. "Hey, Judy. I was just wondering, would you- like to go out tonight?" Judy beamed at Sonic and said "Well, I've got a busy schedule, but, I'll make time." with that, she hugged Sonic again, Sonic instantly returning the embrace and secretly pulling Judy far away, to somewhere more private. Knuckles, looking outward, smiled and said "Oh, those two. Why don't they just make out already?"

Everyone who heard him laughed.

All's well that ends well, right? Well, mostly. Changing the time-stream did have a few unprecedented results. Mons, luckily, was too shocked and too busy to remember Shadow in his lab. However, it ever so slightly affected the radical group that showed up after the fight in Chapter 9. You'll see how next chapter. 13, eh? spooky :)