A/N Sorry for making you wait this long. My school is giving me a lot of project on my way back from winter break. I took little time to work on this and I finally finish it. Hope you enjoy it.
Chapter 25: Now or Never
The match is close, but the odds between us are different. My hands are in no condition to use my powers. Shadow was badly beaten by Amy, but he has a better chance of winning. I glance on my burned hands; I remember back at Tails house, telling me about my limit. I understand what's he saying, but I didn't listen. Even if I knew this would happen I took this risk. I give myself a second thought that maybe…I could've find another way. Shadow and I stand against each other and wait for the commentator's cue to start the match once again.
"This is it people. The battle can continue, and the odds are close. Will Shadow defeats Ivan and defend the title along the Emeralds? Or will Ivan can defeat Shadow and becomes this year's new champion? Place your bets, cause this is the last battle of the night. Are we ready!?" He yelled the question to the crowd and they cheer loudly. People placed their bets, grab their seconds of food and drinks before he starts the count down.
"It's time to start in 5…" The crowd joins in the count down. "-4…3…2…1…"
"Fight!" We charge in to make our first attack, Shadow's fist collides to my fist. I bite down my teeth feeling the pain of my right hand; Shadow tries to kick me in the head, but I reacted fast enough to duck and jump up to land an uppercut. He quickly back flip into the air and fire some of his Chaos Spears. I quickly roll out dodging the first shot and quickly run away from the other spears. I turn back and charge at him, then Shadow turns into a ball and spin dash me. I was lucky to jump over, but not lucky enough. He quickly turns and hit me from behind.
I quickly get back on my feet and attack him, but my punches are sluggish, I can barely land a hit. Shadow taunts me.
"Already at your limit? How pathetic." He kicks me into the air, teleports in the air then kicks me back to the ground. I crash land on the hard floor and spat out blood. This battle is becoming a slaughter, now that I'm at my limit. The commentator looked away a bit after I land to the ground.
"Oooh that's going to leave a mark. Ivan is close of being defeat. It looks like Shadow might win this match." Back at the lounge, where Amy and the others are watching this battle, Tails and Talia are patching Amy's wounds. Tails took a look and sees me slowly standing up from Shadow's last attack.
"This isn't good, Ivan doesn't stand a chance. I can't believe he's going through this, even when he's injured like this. It's suicide if he keeps fighting Shadow." Amy looks up seeing me standing up, she speaks to Tails.
"You maybe right…but this is now a fight that Ivan can't lose. He wants to get stronger and by defeating Shadow will prove to him." Talia comes in and explain to Amy.
"But Amy, you saw him, he's being beaten merciless. He's not going to last long." Tails agrees with her.
"She's right, at this rate this battle is over." Then a familiar voice reaches them.
"You're both wrong…"
"Huh?"
"I got to know Ivan, he's a tough one to beat. No matter how many times he's beaten, he'll always get back up and keep on fighting." Everyone turns to their right side and Sonic stands next to them this whole time. Tails and Talia were shocked seeing him after two years of disappearance.
"Sonic…?" He smiles at Tails, happy to see him again. Tails and Talia begins to cry and then leaps to him saying his name at the same time. "Sonic!"
"Whoa, hey buddy." They hug him tightly, dropping tears on his shoes.
"S-sonic you're back…I missed you." Sonic smiles and pats his head.
"Sorry I'd worry ya pal." Sonic then looks at Talia and feels a bit confuse. "Hey Tails, who's your friend hugging me?" Tails completely forgot about Talia, that she has Tails feeling as well and joins in the hug. He's really worry that he'll freak out if he tells him, but the cat is out of the bag. Sonic chuckles, thinking that Talia looks a lot like Tails, and she does.
Tails scratches his back head and lets out the truth. "Well…Sonic…she's actually…" Once he explains to him. He freaked out, that it's a clone of both Tails and Amy DNA. Amy listen into to Tail's story of how it all happened that day. Sonic greets Talia, but there's no reason to know each other obviously. Then they hear a crashing sound at the battlefield. They quickly look and see me on my knees close of being defeated.
I couldn't keep up with Shadow's speed, I'm more than beaten. Heavily breathing and trying to come up a way to keep fighting. I try close range combat, but I'm not fast enough to hit Shadow. Even if I did land a hit, I'll also hurt myself with my hands now it's all burned up.
'Damn it…I can't…go on…' Then I hear an echo, causing me a headache.
'I can help you, just let me take over.' The pain in my head was bad enough, but I hear him calling.
'Get out of my head. Why I bother letting you take over?' He laughs, knowing there's a specific reason.
'Ah Ivan, you're desperate of beating him. Look at you; you don't stand a chance at this rate. Suit yourself, I'll give you time if you change your mind, but I'll help you, but only once. Here's a little hint…' I swear, if he's going to do some riddles, I would never understand what's he's going to give me.
"Oh you got to be kidding me…"
'Your opponent's speed is similar to the blue hedgehog. Try getting to his speed level.' Apparently I'd easily understand what he telling me to do, but how am I going to do that?
'And how am I going to do that? My hands are fried, there's no way I can shockwave myself multiple times.'
'You're right about one thing, your hands are useless now, nothing but nuisance limps.'
'Kinda harsh there.'
'I'm only going to say this once; your hands aren't the only thing that summons your powers.' Then my head is starting to ease up the headache. My vision is now clear and I see Shadow standing patiently. I don't know how long I've been out, but I quickly think about what he said. 'My hands aren't the only thing that summons my powers.'
It took me a moment to figure out, then I find out what he meant. I look at my legs and I thought to myself.
'Does he meant…' Without making other plans to keep fighting Shadow, I try to use my powers and see if I can transfer to my legs. I hear sparks and my legs are cover by lightning. My legs feels energy flowing around it. Now that I see my powers again, I'm ready to get back into the game.
The commentator see lighting coursing around my legs, he lean forwards to make sure he isn't seeing things.
"What is this folks? Ivan brought back his powers. Its now on his legs, looks like this fight isn't over just yet." Tails looks surprised, seeing me using my powers in this condition.
"What going on Tails?"
"I think Ivan found a different way to use his powers against Shadow without using his hands. He's using it on his legs, but do you think this could work?"
I readied myself and start charging at him. Within seconds I reach Shadow and he was unguarded for a long period of time. He quickly dodge my kick with only small scratch from my lighting. I didn't notice, that my speed doubled my normal. I felt my convenience once again.
'I feel…somehow faster…Alright, let's do this!' I charge Shadow again and he shoot his chaos spears at me. I zig-zag my way to him, when he throws a punch, I tilt myself to the right, drifting myself to get behind Shadow and kick him. I land a hit and he flew up. I quickly catch up to him and my speed got in front of him. I time myself when it's the right moment to swing a kick at him. Once I see my time I kick him from the back of his head and flies down to the ground crashing. It caused great damage to him. I feel so excited that I'm finally dealing damage to him. Everyone is on edge of their seat, that the odds are very close. People cheering their fighters and hoping one them get their moneys worth.
"What a come back! Ivan uses his powers to boost his speed. He's now even the odds, but we haven't see all of it." Back at the lounge Sonic looks impress seeing me making a comeback.
"Not bad. Looks like your friend is strong." Amy took a glance and looks away from him. She's still upset about it. She wish she could talk to him, but she's can't look at him.
Shadow shoots a spear in a distant. I jump up into the air, but I felt a weak wind blew from behind. I look behind and he's about to kick me. I reacted fast enough to block his attack. He's impress that I use my kick to counter-act his.
"Using an attack that has your powers with it. Not bad."
"Guess I'll take the complement."
"Let's see how well you can dodge this." We jump out of close range and Shadow begins to summon his Chaos spears, but I see more appearing. I gotten worry for going to dodge all of them.
"Chaos Spear Barrage!" It's like he commanded an army of spartans to throw their spears at the same time. I freaked out and quickly make a run for it. The spears are coming in every directions, but luckily I can see most of the spears are going to land. I run around Shadow, hoping he won't shoot me from behind, but he's turning to where I'm going.
I'm almost out energy to run faster than my normal speed, but I can't find a way to get close to Shadow if all of his spears are trying to pierce me. I try to think, but what I notice is that Shadow is focusing on summoning more spears. I took a guess that he's going to worn me out from my speed. I know that I must take this risk or I will never get another chance. I took a breath and head towards to Shadow.
I use every energy I have left to increase up to my max speed. I quickly jump to my left and return heading straight. I shockwave up to Shadow and land a punch. I though that would finish him off, but Shadow's last chaos spear appears, two feet away to pierce my head. Shadow smiles.
"You're finish." The spear was about to go through, but then I vanish. "What!?"
"Over here!" Shadow looks up and there I was, coming to place both of my feet on to his face. I use one more attack to finish him.
"Shock wave kick!" He crashes at a speed almost at a mach 1. I barely land on the ground and I fall to my knees, with little breath. The commentator is shocked, seeing an amazing result of this match.
"HOLY *BEEP* HE DID IT! Ivan has done the impossible! He defeated Shadow, which means the team of Ivan and Amy wins the tournament!" The crowds cheers just as loud as they cheers their team at the super bowl. I smile gratefully and lift my fist up into the air. I never felt that when been defeated and given another shot. It feels amazing to get a victory over your previous failure.
Everyone cheers my victory, Tails and Talia jumping over excitement, Knuckles looks down for a moment and slightly smiles. Amy smile gratefully, seeing me winning this match. Sonic took a look at me and turns to Amy, praising in his thoughts.
"'You got a strong friend Amy. He didn't win this fight alone, he must've have heart to win a difficult battle.' Nice going Ivan." The commentator keeps on yelling for an epic battle coming to an end.
"This is AWESOME! What a battle, this is a kind of battle I REALLY want to see. This is a battle for the history, congratulation- huh?" The audience cheers have silent. I wonder why they stop cheering, I look up and couldn't believe what I'm seeing. From the distant Shadow rises from the smoke. Everyone was just as shock as I am, seeing him getting up after that.
'N-no, it can't be.' I'm losing myself, and my fear from before is returning to me. Shadow slowly stands.
"Unbelievable…you ignorant…weak hedgehog…can actually beat me…? You're sorely mistaken. I am Shadow the Hedgehog…the ultimate life…a power far superior than anyone alive. I will not lose to a weakling, unlike you!" he grab hold to his left ring wrist. Sonic make a quick gasp, knowing what's Shadow's planing to do.
"'No, Shadow isn't…' He is!" Sonic tries to yell the commentator to stop the match. "Stop the match!" The commentator couldn't hear him, because his voice can't reach him. He can't do anything right now, all he can do is watch. Amy and the others also know what's going to happen.
"Shadow isn't going to…" Tails looks at Sonic seeing him tightening his fists.
"Ivan has to get out there, he won't survive. In this condition, he'll…" He hesitate to finish his sentence.
I finally get to stand and I see Shadow. He took off the first bracelet. I was confuse of what he's doing. I then hear him saying something to me.
"You thought you defeated me? A weak hedgehog who thinks can defeat an ultimate life form? Tch, I have to admit, you grow…some strength. Allow me to show you the difference between our powers." He takes off his right bracelet and suddenly I felt a massive gust of wind blowing me about couple of inches. I resisted the wind, but the wind is too strong. When the wind stopped, I sense Shadow's power. When I look, I can easily see his red aura flowing around the battlefield. His power is on a whole new level, I'm all out of power and I lost my will to fight.
"How…how could you have that much power?"
"This…is my full power." I widen my eyes over the shock. I didn't understand what he mean't as his full power.
"From the look of your face, you clearly don't understand. My powers are unstable and can't be out too long, otherwise any weak object can shatter to pieces just patting it. A doctor invented two rings bracelet to suppress my full power by 50%. In other words, this whole time you were fighting me, I was only using half of my powers.
I stood in fear that this whole time, I fought him only using half of his power.
"It can't be…"
"Now, I'll end this match…with an instant." he quickly disappear with a blink of an eye. I turn around, but before I completely turn, I hear two words.
"Chaos Control." Everything froze in time, the area is on a negative color. I can't even move my eyes to see what's happening. The only thing I see is a black blur moving around rapidly, but I can't follow it. Then I see Shadow appears. He raise his hand and then make a snap. In an instant I'm inflicting massive damage. It feels like the multiple people are attacking me one at a time. I scream out of pain, that this Shadow's true powers. When the attacks stop, I can no longer be able to stand. Some of the attacks hit my side of the skull, losing my vision. I slowly leans forward and fall to the ground. The impact made me spat out of blood. People are silent making sure if I'm going to get back again, but I haven't move a muscle.
Amy covers her mouth, shocked seeing me on the ground not moving.
"Ivan…no…" Sonic gotten angry that Shadow took it too far. Tails and Talia becomes frighten. Knuckles felt sorry seeing me taking it the worst.
Shadow looks at me for a moment, making sure if I stay down this time. I still haven't move, he then speaks to me.
"Hmph…still weak, and you think that you have a fighting chance to defeat me? Now look at you, dropped dead." He turns back and slowly walk away with no regrets.
A/N Hope you guys enjoy it. Like, Share and Favorite. Oh one more thing, I have a personal project going on and I thought to myself 'Maybe i'll give it a try with my story.' Plus I need you're help, I want you guys to tell me what's your favorite chapter do you want me to do an animation. I'll give you guys at least two or three weeks to vote.