Shadow's Odyssey 2: The Chaos Continues

Anakin sat in his ship, whishing lightspeed was even faster. He startled when his comm received a transmission.

He hit the button. "Whatever it is, I don't have time for it!"

"Anakin, we have a serious emergency."

It relieved him slightly to see that Padme was still okay. "I have an emergency too. Where are you?"

"Listen, Palpatine is back!"

Anakin stared in astonishment. "You know?"

"One of Shadow's friends showed up looking for the Jedi." She explained.

"Yeah, something like that happened to me too. Tell them they need to go to Lothal. You sit tight, I'm coming to get you."

"I'll be waiting for you in the Clone Temple. Love you."

"Love you too." Anakin replied and cut the transmission.

As soon as he did, another call arrived, this time from Leia.

"Dad, Luke stole a starfighter and left the planet."

"HE DID WHAT!?"

"He decided to go with that strange alien he met today."

"WHAT DOES HE THINK HE'S DOING!?"

"Apparently, he felt betrayed because you never told him about being a Jedi, and now he feels like he has to seek answers elsewhere."

"I'll get him after I pick up Padme. Just keep the palace on lockdown until I get there."

Having been watching her dad's face twist in various expressions of panic, shock, and anger, Leia felt compelled to ask, "Dad, what's going on?"

"Nothing to need to be concerned about."

Leia rose a skeptical brow. "If it's nothing, then I guess I don't need to lockdown the palace after all."

Anakin gritted his teeth but confessed. "Palpatine is alive."

"Palpatine. As in the old Sith Lord? AKA Darth Sidious?"

"Yes, and he's stolen Shadow's body."

"The legendary Shadow the hedgehog? The one who saved/terrorized the galaxy?"

"Yes, and until I kill him, no one is safe. Especially you."

"Why?" Leia demanded, now as eager for answers as Luke.

"Because me and Palpatine have… history."

"What kind history?"

That was farther than Anakin wanted to go. "It's not important! Just lock down the palace!" And ended the transmission.


"You need to go to Lothal." Padme said.

"Excellent. And where are Lothal's coordinates?" Omega asked.

Rex stepped forward. "I'll take you there myself."

"Then let us depart immediately."

Rex volunteered to do this for two reasons. Number one, this droid was still technically a dangerous criminal who should not be allowed to wander alone. Two, because if he didn't, he would have to go back to his office and file a mountain of paperwork concerning today's incident.

They boarded a small transport shuttle and took off. Once Rex set the coordinates, things rapidly became awkward, with the hulking droid standing silently in the back of the ship, still with one busted eye, and the remaining eye just staring at him…

Maybe this wasn't such a good idea.

"So… um, how did you meet Shadow?" Rex finally asked.

"I was created to guard him while he was trapped in suspended animation."

"Oh, um… that sounds uh…"

"It was terrible and boring! I should have been out on the battlefield, laying waste to all of the empire's enemies!"

Rex blinked. "Empire?"

"The Eggman Empire."

"As in Doctor Eggman, the fat, bald guy with a moustache?"

"That is him. His orders were illogical, therefore serving him was illogical, therefore I left him and now seek to destroy him. So, Shadow, Rouge, and I teamed up to kill him. And we've been hunting him ever since. How did you meet you Shadow?"

"Well, I'm gonna be honest. My first impressions of him were not… the best. He seemed like an anarchist. And when my brothers were talking about how great Shadow was and evil the Jedi were, I'd thought they'd all gone insane."

"But they were not insane." Omega stated, as if Rex needed reminding. "They had simply been freed from the brainwashing of their control chips."

"Yeah, but I'd already had my control chip removed and it still didn't make sense to me. How could they turn their backs on the Republic so quickly? But then when I thought about it more, it wasn't removing the control chip that made them abandon the Republic, it was the knowledge of what the chip was for. It told them that their loyalty was a lie. And back in the day, loyalty was literally the only thing we had."

"Leaving rebellion as the only logical course of action." Omega concluded.

"I guess it was." Rex agreed.


Meanwhile, on another ship en route to Lothal…

"So, why did you help me?" Luke asked.

"Well, you wanted to go to Lothal to see the Jedi, right?"

"Well… yes."

"Then that's all the reason I need. Sonic always says you don't need a reason to help out a friend." Tails said, smiling brightly.

"Who's Sonic?"

"He's my best friend! He also traveled to this galaxy with us, but I don't know where he ended up."

"Wait, how many of you guys came over?"

"Um, let's see…" Tails began counting on his fingers. "There's me, Sonic, Knuckles, Rouge, Omega, Shadow who's been possessed, and Eggman."

"Wait, Eggman? The evil scientist?"

"Yep. Sidious also kinda kidnapped him."

"Isn't he the same guy who built the largest weapon in galactic history?"

"Yeah, that would be him." Tails confirmed.

"The legends I heard about Doctor Eggman described him as being an almost godlike master of technology."

Tails found this hilarious. "This universe considers Eggman a god? Listen, I deal with his technology all time and it's far from godlike."

"Largest. Weapon. In galactic history! In only a month!"

"Building a superweapon with the Chaos Emeralds isn't that hard. He probably borrowed a lot of elements from the Eclipse Canon. And it's not like this is the first time either." Tails explained matter-of-factly.

Luke could only stare. "So, is everyone in your galaxy able to do stuff like that?"

"Well, no. Me and Eggman are the only one's alive right now."

"Are you sure you aren't gods?"

"Quite sure. Hey, I think we're here!"

Sure enough, the ship dropped out of hyperspace. R2 beeped at them.

"R2 says we're here." Luke translated.

They landed the ship and got out.

"So, where are the Jedi at?" Tails asked.

"How would I know? I've never been here before."

They both turned to R2. "Beep?"

Luke sighed. "He doesn't know either."

"Someone around here must know. Let's start asking." Tails started walking into town. He approached the first stranger he saw and asked, "Do you know where the Jedi are?"

"Oh no. I don't want anything to do with the Jedi. I've seen what those things can do."

Luke looked somewhat offended. "Excuse me, what do mean by 'things'? The Jedi are heroes!"

"They're slowly taking over the whole galaxy. They've taken control of the bank, they have spies watching all of the big businesses, they come and go as they please and answer to nobody! Back in my day, Jedi were civilized! They were organized, they followed the rules, and knew how to stay out of other people's business! And now they act they're above everything and everyone because of their weird supernatural powers!"

Luke had gone red in the face and was ready to continue arguing, but Tails nudged him and whispered, "He's not worth it. We've got more important things to do."

They walked away from the ranting old man and kept walking until he was far behind them.

"Let's find someone else. Someone less… crabby." Tails suggested.

They went around and asked some more people, but nobody had any useful answers.

"Okay, who should we ask next?" Tails asked.

Luke scanned around. "What about that guy with the big droid?"

Tails looked. "Omega!" He ran over to the robot, grinning happily.

Rex blinked at Tails. "You… know this droid?"

"This lifeform is known as Tails." Omega answered. "He is my repairman."

"Aw, Omega, what happened to your eye?"

Omega pointed at Rex.

"Omega, what did you do?" Tails asked exasperatedly.

"He went on a violent rampage through Coruscant." Rex explained.

"I was shot at first. I simply defended myself."

Tails sighed. "Even in self-defense, there is such a thing as too far, Omega."

"So, you guys are looking for the Jedi too?" Luke asked.

"Affirmative." Omega answered.

"Do you have any idea where they are? Because we don't."

"We don't exactly know." Rex replied. "But I know someone who might."