Been doing an ass-ton of work over the past few weeks, so I've had NO time to myself. Anyway, please enjoy!
21 - The Brawl of Shadow and Chaos
Whilst Shadow and Eggman were still at the latter's headquarters, the former decided to continue what they were doing before. He heads back to the room where Eggman still was and tell him that he was ready to continue their search for the Master Emerald Shards. No time to be reminiscing about Maria, now.
He slowly entered through the 2 sliding doors, which automatically opened for him. He slowly walked in to find the egghead with his head resting on his arms, which were lying above his resting head. Shadow swore that he could hear some soft snoring coming from the doctor.
He's asleep…, Shadow thought to himself. I better go wake him up…
But Shadow wasn't one to just shake someone awake. He decided to instead teach Eggman that sleep was never on their schedule, so he approached the sleeping doctor's neck and, with an open hand, slapped the back of the doctor's bald head.
Luckily, he responded. He jerked himself awake and snorted loudly. His shaded eyes were slightly widened and he froze, wondering what just hit him, but he got a clue after hearing a deep voice speak.
"Had a good nap, doctor?", Shadow asked blandly.
Eggman slowly faced wherever the voice came from and yawned, stretching out his arms in the process.
"Oh...hey, Shadow. Something up…?", the doctor asked.
Shadow crossed his arms. "We should go now. I'm getting tired of sitting in this dark place...", he responded.
Eggman clapped once. "Oh, right. Some fresh air would be nice…and maybe we could keep looking for those shards, too...", he muttered.
Shadow shook his head. "Don't get too distracted, doctor. You should remember that they're others looking for those shards.", he warned.
Eggman stood up. "Don't worry; I have all of that under control. This time, I won't be stopped by that pesky blue hedgehog thanks to you!", he responded.
Shadow sighed. "You're welcome. Now, let's go.", he responded.
At the moment, Shadow and Eggman had no idea where they were going, nor did they really care. All that mattered was they were able to find all of the Master Emerald Shards so that they could get their mission over with. They remembered that others, such as Sonic, Tails, Amy, and even Chaos, were also after the shards, so they would persistently clash into each other until they got any shards that they had.
Everything seemed calm for Eggman, however Shadow thought otherwise. Shadow was acting more wary than usual, narrowing his eyes and looking from side to side constantly. Eggman was quick to notice.
"Hey, Shadow. What's going on with you? Are we being spied on or something?", the doctor asked.
Shadow bit his cheek. "Probably. He's not in front of us, but he's here. I also sense some shards around, so that must be why he's here…", he responded.
Eggman raised a brow. "Who's here, Shadow?", he asked.
Before Shadow could respond, however, Shadow quickly grabbed Eggman's arm and swung him aside, away from himself. Eggman grunted from the impact of hitting the grass beneath him and groaned in pain when he got up.
"You pesky little hedgehog...!", he mumbled. "What do you...think you're doi-", he was interrupted by what he saw in front of him. Eggman must've never seen this best before, hence his baffled facial expression.
Shadow stared attentively at the beast upon him before facing towards Eggman, who assumed a fighting stance, but Shadow simply shook his head at him.
"Just stay where you are, doctor. We both know you can't do this; I'm way stronger than you right now. You'll just be defeated in one hit.", he said, also assuming a fighting stance. He shot a brief smirk at the doctor, who was probably scowling from his comment.
"Nothing personal…", he said. Eggman swore that he heard a silent chuckle coming from Shadow afterwards.
Shadow faced his opponent once more and stared attentively; he noticed that Chaos had found more shards of the Master Emerald while he and Eggman were gone.
So he found more of them while we were gone. Well, I'll just have to take them from him…, Shadow thought to himself.
Shadow was still able to read Chaos's mind, and he took his sweet time doing so.
"I already know you want me dead...but, you're trying to reseal me in the Master Emerald…? Knowing damn well there was no purpose behind that to begin with…?", he asked, not understanding Chaos's motive.
But then Shadow was able to understand everything Chaos wanted, but he simply scoffed.
"Me? Make you stable? So that's your purpose for wanting me dead? Hah! Under my dead body!", he scoffed, the irony coming in strong. "I'd rather rot in my own blood than to stabilize you!"
Shadow began slowly walking in circles around the more powerful Chaos, becoming more and more wary of the beast's enlarged arm. "Now, I see you've found more of the shards. If you would just kindly hand them over, we won't have any problems…but if not, then I'll happily accept a rematch...", he explained, aware that he hasn't gotten any stronger ever since their previous fight.
Chaos mirrored Shadow's movements; he consistently turned in circles so that he was facing Shadow the entire time. It seemed like Chaos wasn't listening to Shadow; he wasn't going to give away these shards anytime soon. But that didn't mean that Shadow wasn't going to vet them; all he had to do was try harder.
"Oh, uncooperative, are we?", he asked. Before he could finish, he was rudely interrupted by Eggman. Shadow didn't jump, despite completely forgetting the doctor was still present.
"Shadow, what are you doing!?", he asked. "Just destroy him!"
Shadow furrowed his brows. "Just be patient, doctor. I know I haven't gotten any stronger since last time, but this is my chance to do so…", he reassured before returning his attention to his opponent.
Chaos's eyes emitted a dim green light, indicating some sort of emotion.
"Why the angry look? I didn't do anything yet…", Shadow chuckled. "Since you won't give me the shards, we'll have to take more extreme measures!", instead of getting ready, Shadow just went for the spot that stood out the most; Chaos's enlarged arm. Little did he know, however, that this arm would be good for countering the many Homing Attacks Shadow used against it.
Once he flurry of attacks stopped, Shadow took a moment to regain his breath. So that arm's for more than show…, however before Shadow could complete his train of thoughts, he quickly dodged a hard swing from said arm.
After dodging it a few times, Shadow was finally able to land a hit on Chaos, but it was on his side, one of many spots to worry the least about. It did some damage, but not enough.
Shadow searched around for something until he faced Eggman once again, doing a signal towards him. When Eggman wasn't able to understand what Shadow wanted, the latter pointed towards the doctor's left. Apparently, the Chaos Emerald that they had fell out when he was pushed out of the way. Shadow needed said emerald for assistance.
Without thinking, Eggman frantically threw the emerald towards Shadow. Unfortunately, Eggman's trajectory was wonky, thus he managed to throw the emerald not into Shadow's hands, but directly into Chaos's body. Shadow looked towards Eggman, visibly annoyed. The fact that he had neither irises nor pupils pupils made pupils made his stare look really evil.
"Sorry…", the doctor apologized, embarrassed. Right after, they noticed that Chaos was changing once again, this time, his other arm grew in size as well as his upper body. He also grew considerably in height. This was also when Shadow noticed a second Chaos Emerald within Chaos's other arm, the one that remained enlarged until now.
So the Chaos Emeralds are responsible for his transformation. Since we no longer have any more Chaos Emeralds, I'll just have to beat one of them out of them, then I'll get those shards...but would this work at Shadow's current state?
He sighed. Even though he had no Chaos Emerald, he still had some shards within him as well as Sonic's energy racing through his body from his arm. He didn't feel like this was enough, however, as last time he tried to fight Chaos, he was ultimately defeated, and he was in his base form during that time.
Shadow stared him down for a while before finally taking initiative, but before he could even act, Chaos tried to attack him with both of his arms interchangeably, so he decided to use Sonic's stolen energy to dodge his attacks. For now, the fight was tied and it dragged on for a while until Chaos transformed again, this time without the use of Chaos Emeralds.
Shadow noticed a giant blue ball of goop forming before him; he assumed that this was Chaos, however he wasn't exactly sure why he was transforming yet again, but he nonetheless prepared to attack. He attempted to jump to Chaos's height to produce a flurry of kicks. They all seemed to do something to Chaos; he was reacting by contracting and relaxing his body repeatedly, however he wasn't taking much damage.
When Shadow was done with his attack, Chaos managed a hard hit on Shadow, causing him to fall and hit the ground below. He groaned, trying to get up and regain his composure. He wasn't going to let Chaos defeat him like he did last time. He had to win this time if it would get himself and the doctor somewhere.
He decided to just continue using Sonic's speed, whilst using his brawn at the same time so that he could not only outrun his attacks, but he could also land some kicks, punches, and Homing attacks on the monster. It worked better than a few minutes ago, and Chaos was taking considerable damage, to the point where he was actually growing weak, however this was short-lived, as Chaos decided to use a rather effective shield against Shadow. When Shadow hit the shield, he was yet again left on the ground, this time with several bruises on his body. They burned, too.
He tried again, however the same thing happened; nothing but roars of pain erupting from the ebony hedgehog and the sounds of electricity jolting through his body. This was when he realized that that shield was electrocuting him. After several more tries, Shadow was lying on his back and panting. He grew weak from Chaos's electrocuting shield and he was developing more bruises the more he tried to attack.
When a weakened Shadow finally rose from the ground, he stumbled a bit before getting into a sort of bent over position; his hands were on his knees and he was struggling to catch his breath. Then Chaos finally reverted into his original form, and he just stood there.
Shadow scowled at Chaos. He wasn't giving up just yet. All he had to do was retrieve those shards, and hopefully the Chaos Emerald, too. Better yet, if he could remove Chaos of both of those emeralds, then he'll revert back into his base form, making him easier to defeat.
But at his state, he wasn't sure how he was going to do all of this. That is, until one of the emeralds suddenly fell out of Chaos. Shadow didn't immediately notice, but Chaos had reverted back to his previous state. He saw the Chaos Emerald lying below the beast. He made some measly attempts at getting it, stumbling over a few times. Unfortunately, Chaos was able to get a hold of the emerald once more, however Shadow was lucky yet again, as it fell out of his hand again.
"Shadow! Hurry up! Get the emerald!", a voice yelled from behind. Shadow looked back to see Eggman holding a rather dinky little blaster.
"I already shot the emerald out of his reach twice! Now, go!", he yelled once again. Apparently, the emeralds weren't falling out of Chaos; instead, Eggman was shooting it out of him so that Shadow could reach it. Shadow wasted no time and finally took a hold of the emerald.
Fox Boy used Chaos Control against him to defeat him. This is my only chance. Shadow stood straight and gave Chaos a wide smirk. It was finally time to end it all.
"Chaos Control!", he shouted. Whilst everything including Chaos was frozen, he delivered what seemed to be a fatal kick to his visible brain. It seemed like he had finally defeated Chaos...right? Shadow noticed that Chaos dropped the shards that he was holding onto.
He shouted out the words "Chaos Control" once more and everything was back to normal. Shadow noticed Chaos frantically retreating elsewhere, forgetting all about the shards that he dropped.
After Chaos finally disappeared, Shadow bent over to grab the shards from the ground before scoffing in disgust. "Hmph, what a wussy…", he mumbled before walking towards Eggman, scowling at him.
"So you interfered without my permission…", he muttered.
Eggman crossed his arms and pouted. "Hey, at least I helped…", he said.
Shadow scoffed. "Barely…", he responded, walking away from Eggman. The latter turned so that he could face Shadow once more.
"Well, at least we have our Chaos Emerald again...and more shards. So far, so good, right?", the doctor asked.
"Don't get too excited, doctor; we just got started.", Shadow responded before observing the shards. It turns out that they were quite in a bit of luck because Shadow had counted a total of 5 shards. It wasn't a lot, but it was the most that they've found for the first time.
Shadow bit his lip before he slowly pushed 1 of the shards into his arm. It was enough to emit a strong surge of energy through him for a few brief seconds while his bruises healed almost immediately. He placed the other 4 shards in other random places. It seemed like Shadow had gotten stronger from these shards, however he could only guess that.
He knew for sure, though, that his senses had gotten more sensitive; even though Chaos was gone, he was still able to sense a faint presence coming from him, which could also mean that it would be easier for he and Eggman to find the rest of the shards, since he was able to sense those, too.
Shadow turned to face Eggman. Before they could do anything else, Shadow had to find the rest of the shards. He refused to let their mission end the same way it did previously.
"Hey, Shadow. Don't you wanna test out your strength first? You know, cause of the extra shards?", the doctor asked.
Shadow chuckled. "Let's not waste all of my energy on useless tests. We have a mission to do and it's going to be a success…", he explained.
Eggman simply nodded and followed Shadow elsewhere. It seems like the duo are back on track; they had a Chaos Emerald once again and they found some more shards, however they knew that this mission would grow more and more tedious since there were others looking for the shards.
They also didn't realize that some of the shards they would need would never be found unless under extreme circumstances, but they had yet to discover this. At the moment, the duo continued with their designated route.
I decided to just immediately turn Chaos 1 into Chaos 2 in this chapter because, honestly, Chaos 1 is pretty useless and nobody cares about him. Also I know Chaos 2's shield doesn't electrocute, but I just wanted this fight to be more interesting. Again, sorry for being so busy. ;A;