This is a fanfiction, and as such, most of the characters in the story are not mine. Most characters are © Sega, and are not used with permission.

Chapter 4: Out of the Frying Pan and into the Fire

Shadow was back in Knothole and passed princess Sally.

"I heard you got in a bit of a tussle earlier."

"You could say that." Shadow rubbed his chin where Knuckles gave him his first surprise.

"Do you think he's in leagues with Robotnik?"

"I don't think so, but if that maniac ever found out about what that other maniac did to me, you can bet he'd be most interested."

"What about your Chaos Control, couldn't that stop him?"

"It could have, but it seems he has use of it as well, and his seems to be more powerful. Worse yet, he's got skill, real skill. The guy is a fighter, a bruiser to no end."

"Then what does he want?"

"He wants me, or more specifically, he wants the Chaos Control. It's power came from a gem called a 'Chaos Emerald', and he's looking for them. My power was triggered when I absorbed one of them, and now he wants it, even if he has to take it out of my hide."

"Is he trying to become even more powerful?"

"No, he seems more like an overanxious cop trying to do his job. Considering how powerful the Chaos Emeralds seem to be, I can see why they should be kept safe."

Sally sighed. "This is bad. If this joker shows up while we're fighting Robotnik, he can cause a lot of problems."

"No kidding. It seems that he has the ability to track the Chaos Emeralds too, which means he can track me, at least while I'm using the Chaos Control. I turned it off and ditched him, so hopefully his 'Radar' won't track me here."

"We have to do something about him. Can we convince him to leave us alone?"

"I doubt it."

Sally and Shadow stood silently for a moment.

"Speaking of tracking you here, I understand someone else has done just that."

"Yeah, a girl named Amy. She came here looking for… for Sonic." Shadow was about to continue to describe how heartbroken Amy was when she saw the grave, but he looked up to see the depression on Sally's face and realized that she knew a lot better than he could describe.

Sally let out a very verbal sigh. "At least you're alright." Sally muttered a bit more, but it was totally incoherent. Slowly, she started to walk away, leaving Shadow by himself.

* * *

Shadow was sitting down with Rouge and Bunnie in the latter's (formerly Sonic's) hut, eating a vegetable soup that his host had prepared.

Rouge swallowed another mouthful before putting her spoon back in the bowl. "So is Amy still out there?"

Shadow stopped from blowing over the hot soup. "I haven't seen her come back yet."

Bunnie also took a pause between scoops. "It's been over an hour. Maybe yah should go check on her; in her current state, who knows what she'll do."

"Speaking of mental states, I just had a brief run in with Sally."

Rouge's interest was piqued. "Really? She's been a total 'Gloomy Gus' ever since I met her. She must have taken Sonic's death pretty hard."

"Very. I only saw her briefly beforehand, but she's clearly a different person now, and I think she's getting worse."

Bunnie was getting concerned. "Yah don't think she'd…?"

"I have no idea." Shadow sighed. "After that first battle, she almost called me 'Sonic'. To be honest, if I'd help her at all, I'd almost pretend to be him."

Rouge frowned at him. "That's not funny."

"Of course it's not funny, but I'm serious. Ever since I came here I've been trying to differentiate myself from him. I'm starting to wonder if it'd be just as well to become him."

"Now you shut up, that's no answer. If you want to help Sally, then she has to come to grips with Sonic's death." Rouge was almost scolding Shadow, but returned to her normal voice. "Now we've got two girls roaming around who are in the dumps over Sonic's death. What do we do?"

Shadow snapped his fingers. "That's it, we kill two birds with one stone. We get Sally and Amy together."

Bunnie looked at him very strangely. "What?"

Rouge was also rather dumbfounded. "I think you're grasping at straws. Trying to turn them both into lesbians is not what I consider an answer, no matter how much fun it would be to try."

"Here's what we do; we take Amy, paint her blue, and get her a sex change operation."

Bunnie was totally lost; having grown up a farm girl, "lesbians" and "sex change operation" simply flew over her head.

Rouge thought that this answer was even dumber than the previous, and decided to humour Shadow by not pointing out the more obvious flaw. "Now where around here are we going to get blue paint?"

"How should I know? I'm 'grasping at straws' here."

"Then go back to the homosexual plan, at least that was the slightest bit reasonable."

* * *

The three eventually finished lunch and walked out, planning on finding Amy. They didn't have to go far when they saw the pink hedgehog in question heading towards them. Shadow pulled ahead to meet her.

"Amy, are you O.K.?"

"Yeah, I guess so. I came so far, only to find I came too late."

"You're not the only one. I came here to challenge him, to prove that I was the fastest thing alive, not him. One race was all I had; he just edged me out, and I never had a chance for a rematch."

"I never got to meet him at all." Amy pouted a bit, and kicked a small rock at her feet.

"So what are you going to do now?"

"Well, I suppose my Sonic fan club is pretty much kaput. But I'm going to hang out here for a little while."

"You are?"

"Yes; after all, how am I going to get my 'ULTIMATE I LOVE SHADOW THE HEDGEHOG FAN CLUB!' off the ground if I leave!"

Amy threw up a giant banner; it was the same one that she showed Rouge earlier, but with the name "Sonic" crossed out and the name "Shadow" written in with crayon.

Shadow could feel the headache about to hit him head on. "You're going to start a what…"

Amy's formerly happy self returned. "I'm going to start the greatest fan club, devoted to the greatest hedgehog in the whole wide world!"

Amy leapt up and wrapped her arms around Shadow's neck. "Isn't that totally awesome?!"

{Maybe Knuckles will come and put me out of my misery.}

Behind Shadow, Rouge was not pleased with this turn of events. "I'm gonna kill that bitch."

Bunnie wasn't too pleased either, and started to plot the demise of both females.

* * *

Amy spent several hours following Shadow around, trying to find out about as much of him as possible. In a way, it was a bit refreshing having the girl trying to figure out everything about him without drawing any hint of comparison to Sonic; but that lasted about 12 seconds before her chirpy voice simply became annoying.

"Shadow?"

"What?"

"What is your favourite food?"

"Spaghetti and meatballs."

"Thanks."

A few minutes later…

"Shadow?"

"What?"

"Where are you from?"

"Baltesaria."

"Thanks."

A few more minutes later…

"Shadow?"

"What?"

"Do you like long walks under the moonlight?"

Shadow found that question a bit odd. "Not really?"

"Thanks."

An additional few minutes later…

"Shadow?"

"WHAT?!"

Tails fell over.

"Sorry, kid; I thought you where Amy."

"Who?"

"I'll explain later. What is it?"

"You gotta see what I saw."

"Is it far from here?"

"Kinda."

"Is it easy to get to?"

"Well, I had to fly, but if you can get up a tree you should be fine."

"Perfect!"

Shadow left and leapt from treetop to treetop, with Tails leading the way. Being able to fly, Rouge followed and took up a position in the rear. Back on the ground, Amy saw the trio heading off.

* * *

After about 20 minutes and several miles of trees, Tails, Shadow and Rouge came to a halt in a tall oak.

"What did you find?"

"Look over there." Tails pointed towards the mountains to the south. "It's the Dorondagandor mountain range."

Rouge smirked. "Interesting name."

Shadow glanced at her. "Try saying it five times fast."

"I couldn't say it once."

"The tallest is Mt. Tomak, but what I want to show you is that one."

Rouge tried to follow Tails' hand, but the distance was too great. "Which one."

Shadow studied the mountains. "You mean the second to the left of the one with all the trees?"

"Yeah. I've seen those mountains lot of times, but that mountain was never there before."

Rouge turned to Shadow. "How'd you spot that one?"

"The mountain is a slightly different color than the others; plus, it's moving."

Both Tails and Rouge were in shock, and looked back. Tails had to ask. "What do you mean it's moving?"

"I move far faster than most anyone else, so I'm used to looking at a world that seems to stand still. But that mountain is moving, ever so slightly." Shadow clenched his teeth in anger. "And if I'm right, I know exactly who I'm going to find there."

* * *

Shadow, Tails and Rouge headed towards the horizon to find the strange mountain that had appeared. When they arrived some two or three hours later, what met their eyes was beyond anything they ever saw. Just beyond the range, hovering over the lake on the other side of a thick forest was a large mass of earth, an entire island simply floating in mid-air.

Tails looked up upon the mass. "Oh wow!"

Rouge was equally astounded. "Where in the blazes did this come from?"

Shadow was the only one who didn't outwardly exhibit any signs of shock. "One thing is for certain, somebody put it there."

Rouge turned to him. "Where do you get that idea?"

"It wasn't here before, so it had to move here. And if it was moving, then something had to stop it. And since there's no sign that it crashed into anything, I'm guessing someone made it stop."

Tails landed next to Shadow and Rouge. "But who is controlling it, and how does it stay up."

Shadow glared. "I have a good idea. I can feel the power emanating from it. It's like a power that I felt recently, but much stronger. Knuckles definitely has something to do with this."

Rouge's eyes returned to the floating island. "So do we go up and say 'hi'?"

"No, I don't want to face him on his home turf, I want him down here."

"And how do you propose to do that."

"The same way he found me before. Chaos Control!" Shadow's form was engulfed in a green flame that simmered to a slight glow. "Alright Red, where are you?"

* * *

"Computer, have you finished analysis on this 'Knuckles' character?"

"Affirmative. Energy readings are similar to the energy exhibited by 'Shadow', but their harmonics and wave mechanics operate at different frequencies. Also, the mean energy level of 'Knuckles' is 56.9% higher than 'Shadow'."

"Excellent. Rouge was a bit of a disappointment, but perhaps this newcomer could be of greater use to me."

To be continued