As the scream died down a stunned silence slowly filled the room, that is until it was shattered by the sound of Knuckles breaking out in hysterical laughter. And as the echidna doubled over in delight Amy couldn't help but join the fun, and when Sonic's face turned a bight shade of red even Shadow let out a few chuckles shaking his head from side to side in amazement. "And you said that I screamed like a girl?" Knuckles said as tears of joy streamed down his face.
By the time every one had calmed down Sonic was able to regain whatever was left of his dignity, which wasn't much. Unfortunately Knuckles couldn't help but let out a few more chuckles as Sonic dusted him self off. "So what are you doing here Knuckles?" Sonic asked glaring fiercely at his rival.
"Tails sent me after he found out what was going on here, he has the Tornado 2 parked up on a heli pad not far from here. He said that you guys could use all the help you could get, and judging by how you screamed Sonic, I'd say he was right." Knuckles said taking one last jab at Sonic's sissy shriek.
"So that's where Tail's went when he left me," Amy said, remembering when the little fox had tucked her away in the box. She had waited for what had seemed like years before Sonic and Shadow showed up.
"Well, if he's waiting for us we had better not disappoint him." Shadow said turning toward the latter Knuckles had descended from. Sonic couldn't put his finger on it but something seemed different about Shadow, but by the time he figured it out it would be far to late.
As the rest of the team turned to follow Shadow's lead a low groan swept across the room sending a fearful chill down their spines. Almost every one was frozen in fear when the terrible sound swept across the room again, every one but Shadow, and as he turned to face the abomination that would dare to impede his escape from this veil place he could feel the anger and hatred rise up with in him. As he faced the creature that had been following them he was slightly astounded by its appearance. It's face, or at least where Shadow thought it should be, seemed to be covered in masks that very disturbingly resembled human faces, its small scrawny arms stretched from its humped over shoulders down to the floor where its wrists were held together by a solid piece of brick. The things legs where shackled together and its body was covered in rags that looked like they had been on it for years from all the deterioration. And as it let out another scream of torment it lifted its hands over its head where they paused for a second before they came crashing down in a slow arch that made the brick on its wrists smash into a near by pillar, then using the momentum from the first swing it let them fall back to the left where the brick once again smashed into another statue that caused the gate behind to clang shut followed shortly by the click of metal bars sliding into place above. As the four of them continued to stare at the monster that had just sealed all hopes of escape Sonic realized that one of his worst fears had come to face him. For he was now trapped in a room with one of umbrellas more deadly experiments.
As the creature continued to lumber towards them Shadow couldn't help but clench his fist in rage. This thing would dare to challenge him, the ultimate life from, and the most powerful weapon in the world? Well, he would just have to show it a thing or two about what real torment was like. "Sonic, this things mine. You hurry and find a way out of here, I'll have this thing begging for mercy before you know it," with his final words echoing across the walls Shadow unwittingly dashed to his death.
As all the normal effects of his super speed set in Shadow summoned the power of chaos around his left fist, aligning it with the monsters head Shadow was just a few feet from it ready to rain down death and destruction, but before he hade even taken another step a sharp pain erupted in his right temple that sent him flying into one of the four statues that stood sentinel at the corners of the platform. The force of Shadow slamming into it caused the stone figure to slide back a couple of inches so that it was now balancing over the edge, ready to fall into the abyss at any second. Shadow grabbed the structure as he slowly stood up shaking his head to rid it of the dizziness that resulted from the blow. Whatever this thing was it was faster than Shadow had thought, but it wouldn't matter now. Cause Shadow never made the same mistake twice.
This time when he rushed towards the creature he made sure to watch the hands so they wouldn't catch him off guard again. Unfortunately he was to busy watching the hands to notice the tentacles erupting from its back, and by the time Amy shouted in distress the strange appendages were already wrapped tightly around his neck chocking the life from him. While Shadow struggled for air the tentacles easily lifted him into the air, and the creature slowly turned its head in fascination. It had never seen anything like this before, was it another umbrella monster, or some thing else, could it be tamed to be the things friend? While the creature continued to stare Shadow snapped his foot up into its chin, sending it into another fit of blinding rage, and as the grip on Shadow's neck tightened the thing once again brought it's hands up to slam the brick into the rib cage of the black hedgehog. Shadow could feel every rib in his body crack and snap as the stone weapon continued to plow into him, luckily though the force of the blow also snapped the tentacle around he's neck sending him head long into the coffin that nearly tipped over from the impact.
As shadow once again slowly stood up he felt no pain from the wounds inflicted upon his battered body, the pain always came later, after the adrenaline had finished coursing though his veins. And when he looked back up at the creature staggering towards him he knew there was no choice left, he would have to use his trump card. There was a very high possibility that the trick would kill him in the process, but he would take that risk to protect his friends.
Shutting his eyes shadow began to focus the chaos power within him, building it up to the point where he could feel its energy coursing though his very being, the warmth of its power soothed Shadow as its purple aura began to surround his body. Finally opening his eyes he saw that the monster was half way from the first figure he had crashed into and the walkway it had come from, targeting a spot in between Shadow used every ounce of his will to shift his molecules from across time and space to appear on his desired spot. Then releasing the power stored up in him Shadow shouted "Chaos Burst!!" creating a vortex of distorted time and space to swirl outward from him sending the stone figure over the edge and the monster sliding backwards kicking up dust from beneath its heels.
Having spent almost all his power in that finale attack the ultimate life from slumped to one knee, finally feeling the eruption of pain that covered his entire body. While Shadow knelt there clutching his sides in pain he heard the monster release a sound that could have only come from the bowls of hell its self. He could even feel the vibration of its feet as it rushed towards him determined to kill that which had caused it so much pain and suffering. Slowly getting to his feet Shadow felt the warm rush of blood flowing into his lungs from the many holes his fractured ribs had made, he knew he was going to die. It was inventible; even now if he was able to beat this thing he would die from blood loss or suffocating on his own fluids. So this really was it, never would he had guessed that he would die in such a horrid place, but that didn't matter now. Taking in his finale breath of air the ultimate life from turned to the monster that ended his life, and ignoring the aches and pains that swam through his body Shadow shifted his feet into a left back stance and slowly raised his right hand once again focusing what ever energy he had left into it. And as the creature quickly closed the gab between them their eyes locked for a fraction of a second, but even for that second shadow saw something he would have never expected to see, tears. Was this thing really as evil as he first thought, or was it simply scared and alone, fighting for its own survival as some strange creature pummeled it for no apparent reason? These new thoughts that swirled across the black hedgehog's mind caused him to hesitate for a second or two, but that was all the monster needed to bring its hands crashing down across the side of Shadow's head. At first his vision faltered as he spun towards the edge but as things began to clear up he caught one last glimpse of his friends before falling into the oblivion that awaited him below.
AN: well here is the last chapter of the year, I hope you guys had as much fun with this as I did, but before I sign off for 2004 I have one last question I would like to ask you guys. Should I keep Shadow dead or bring him back in some way? On one hand if I keep him dead that would shorten the plot a little, but on the other hand I would like to follow up on how the T-Virus continues to affect him. I just don't know what to do, so I'll leave it up to you guys. Just put what you want to happen in your review and I'll decide what to do next year.
And would someone please tell me what the html things are that we can use are. It would really help to improve my writing.