Sonic, Shadow and co are © Sega; all the other characters are mine.

Authoress' Note: Sorry for the delay of this chapter, but between Sonic Heroes (the third emerald was really a pain, but in the end I got it… now I have only to get all the A rank) and the move I haven't had much time for my fics…

Authoress' Note2: I'm really, really happy to knows that you all like the story! I just hope to not disappoint you with the next ones.

Authoress' Note3: Just a little note about the S-01 acronym that I forgot to say when it first came out, it is read a S- O (the letter, not the number… I don't know about you all, but sometimes I get confused between the two) One. And naturally the S-02 is S - O Two

RichaCo: And that I thought that it wasn't good like the seventh chapter (I don't know why, but I always fear that the readers will not like the new chapter). Don't worry, there'll be a little more of Knuckles/Rouge in the near future. Word of Az.
For Sonic and Shadow… *laughs very maniacally* read and enjoy!

Dragon Master Naya: I'm always happy to see (or read) my reviewers. You know... you all give me strength to continue! So review! Review! Review!

Firehedgehog: Here's the next one! Enjoy!

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CHAPTER ELEVEN

Path Of Trials

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Eggman walked happily down the corridor until he came in front of a double steel door; he stood in front of it and the sensor opened the automatic door "Finally the download is complete!" He exclaimed to himself walking to the computer and seeing the one hundred percent full bar blinking on it. The doctor closed the program and disconnected the two mechs from it; he walked to their heads and activated their 'brains' by pressing a little button on a little control panel.

"Wake and raise, my creations!" He said chuckling under his breath "Wake and raise…" He repeated as the two mechs' eyes turned on. The two sat up on the metal table and turned their heads towards their creator "What's our first mission?" The blue one asked still with its monotone voice; to an inexpert eye there weren't any change, but to Eggman, which was an expert, they had fairly improved. The man laughed again; this time Sonic was going to fall. This time the victory was his.

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The black hedgehog moved the light around the place in an attempt to find where the arrow came from; his red eyes fell on the open mouth of the statue. He hinted a smile and walked to it; he flashed the light into the hole and something metallic faintly glistened. It seemed some sort of mechanism; he turned around and looked at the floor. If he could find the trigger of the trap he could avoid the next ones, since the corridor was full of those statues.

Shadow looked down as the hedgehog in his arms mumbled something in his sleep; he watched him for some seconds in hope that he would wake up, but when he didn't he returned his attention to the floor. Some seconds later his eyes fell on a slightly raised brick "Here you are." He muttered walking in front of it.

The ebony hedgehog placed a foot on it and pushed; a clink later an arrow hit the opposite wall and fell to on the ground, next to the first one. Shadow smiled and pointed the light forward into the corridor; his smile faded away as he noted that the floor was filled with the same type of rocks.

Surely many of them triggered different traps, but he didn't have the possibility to try them all 'This is going to be hard…' He thought sighing as he looked for a safe path amongst all the random triggers. When he found one he started cautiously making his way through it jumping from spot to spot.

The black hedgehog finally reached the middle of the path where there were five or six feet of free ground and stopped; the last fifty feet of the corridor were entirely covered by the stone triggers in a chessboard manner minus a two feet wide square area in the middle of it. Shadow looked at it with narrowed eyes; he knew that it was another trap, and he wasn't going to fell for it.

He looked at the bricks; they were too little even for a single foot to stay in. He could do it if he went tiptoeing, but the risk to lose balance or to place a foot in the wrong position was too great; he simply couldn't afford to trigger one of the many traps. He sighed again and looked around with the aid of the torch for any type of clue that could help him get out of the trap filled corridor.

Shadow turned to the right, where the statues were and his eyes fell upon faint marks on the wall; it was like something, or someone was sent into it with such force that it left visible scrapes. They were at head's height and seemed to have something familiar; he kneeled and put the hedgehog in his arms on the ground leaning against the wall. He stood up again and touched the markings with his good hand, and again another memory returned to his mind.

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This time he was in a bright metal room; it was empty of everything, minus several carcasses of robots. They were like the Hunters, but less complicated and without colors; they were equipped with simple stun rifles.

Shadow walked to the nearest robot and examined it; it was beyond repair and its head was missing completely. Looking up he saw some markings on the metal wall in front of him; he walked in front of the scrapes and touched them "You should react more actively… I won't always be here to cover your back…" Someone behind him said.

The voice of his interlocutor was young and foreign, yet it had something very familiar in it, like he had heard it recently. However, as much as he tried, he couldn't bring himself to remember where he had heard it "I know that… but I'm not fast and strong like you…"

The person behind him chuckled "You should stop that, Shadow. We are the same, yet we are different…" Shadow closed his eyes heartbroken "I know that… yet… I can't seem to reach you! Every time I make a progress, you make two of them!" He fell on his knees and started crying.

The hedgehog at his back kneeled down and put a hand on his shoulder "Shadow, I know that you have my same abilities, but you can't achieve them unless you don't stop to underestimate yourself and your capabilities." There was a moment of silence "Besides I heard that a colleague of Gerald is trying to put together some sort of shoes based on Chaos Energy…"
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The memory ended leaving a motionless black hedgehog staring at the wall; the only thing that was moving were his eyes, which darted from spot to spot on the brick vertical surface as his brain was trying to reach an answer to the many question that he had. He knew that it was his brother who spoke in his memory, yet he couldn't understand why he couldn't remember his name or his face.

Another question was why he was so weak back then and why he was so slow on making progress; then there were those words that his brother told him 'What he meant when he said that we were the same, yet we were different?'

Shadow sighed and let his head lean on the wall; thinking about it only gave him an enormous headache and more confusion over the whole story. Some seconds later he looked down at his blue double; so alike, yet so different…

His eyes widened in realization; that was what his brother meant. He smiled and kneeled again next to Sonic; he was still out and it seemed that he wasn't going to wake up that soon "You know, Sonic?" He asked whispering to the unconscious hedgehog "You seems to have all the answers to all of my questions… The question is…" He paused a little "Why? It's because you have some of my brother's blood in you?"

Shadow stared at Sonic for some seconds before he stood up and looked again at the marks 'I'm sure that if I stay with you, everything will work out.' He smiled at the thought 'I may have lost my brother, but now I have you, Sonic.'

The black hedgehog put aside his thought regarding his family and stepped back from the wall; he stared at the markings deep in thought. He knew that they were left by hedgehog's quills, but why?

He turned around and faced the other wall; his mind started working the many possible answers and came with only one plausible. A hedgehog passed from here, found something interesting on the other wall, and somebody else hurled him, or her, into the wall to get first.

Shadow walked over the wall and noted a lone standing trigger on the floor; he backed some feet from it and analyzed the situation. A lone standing brick could mean that it was something to trigger a secret door in front of it, but it could also mean that it was another trap; not sure of it, he started looking around for something else.

The left wall presented only that lone trigger, the ground was bare and the right one presented only a column; he sighed and walked in front of the trigger. He kneeled and put his hand on it; some seconds later he retracted it and stood up. There was again that uneasy feeling that ran through his body that told him to not trust that trigger; he walked back again some feet and stared at the wall again.

It was now official that the trigger was a bad one; it was too visible to be a good one. He sat down and fell on his back a little discouraged; he was blocked and he couldn't find a safe way out. He faced the chessboard field deep in thinking; if only he was at the top of his energies he could cross it with a jump, and with Sonic in tow too.

Suddenly the light of the torch fell on a brick some feet into the field; it was different from the others and this attracted his attention. He stood up and kneeled in front of the field; the brick in question had a diamond shaped mark on its side and it was intriguing, to say the least.

The black hedgehog grinned; he had found the right trigger. He stood up again and carefully took aim; when he felt ready he jumped on it and steadied himself on the tiny spot. His head turned around as a rumble came from the left wall; like he had guessed, a secret door was slowly opening to reveal another passage.

Shadow jumped back and picked up in his arms the blue hedgehog, being very careful about his injured right wrist; he walked in front of the new dark passage and shone the light into it. It was empty, straight and unsuspicious; just two walls, a ceiling and a ground made of bricks put together.

His thoughts were interrupted as the wall stopped and slowly came back down; Shadow looked up at the approaching door and narrowed his eye a little in frustration. He sighed as there was no time to examine better the new passage; he walked into the new space and looked as the door finally closed him into it.

The black hedgehog looked at the spot illuminated by the torch and sighed; those ruins not only depleted one's physical energies, but also the mental ones. The path was constructed with deadly intents and only one with the right traits could surpass the whole thing; luckily he had many of said traits…

Again, his thoughts were interrupted, this time by the hedgehog in his arms that mumbled something really faint and moved a little; Shadow looked down, and through the faint light he could see something green faintly glisten.

"Sonic?" He called softly, as if scared to bring pain to the already battered blue hedgehog in his arms; there was a faint movement that came from him that told him that he was awake, or at least partially awake "Are you ok?"

Shadow felt him nod very faintly "Can… can you walk?" His hope for a help from the other hedgehog, even if slightly, faded away as he received no response; Sonic was out cold again. He sighed again and decided to go on; luckily for the moment he wasn't feeling that uneasy feeling that gave him the creeps and that usually came whenever he was near something bad and hidden.

The ebony hedgehog walked forwards with his senses under full alert for anything that could be a sign for a trap; he sighed with relief as he came to an opening in the right wall that conduced him back on the main course. That had been rather easy, but from now on it was going to be hard and deadly.

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Chaos stared at the big and red cloth that was sprawled on the desert floor; another one was about a hundred yards to the east, draped around a desert bush. He took the first one in his hand and examined it; the tissue was artificial, and many cords were attached to it. He didn't know what the whole thing was used for, but he knew that one of the hedgehogs had used it to escape.

Looking around he noted a ten feet raised rock; that would be a good spot where he could survey the entire zone. He walked to the rocky formation and jumped on it; he started slowly scanning the area in the direction opposite from where he came.

His eyes narrowed suddenly when he saw something glisten into the horizon; he knew only one thing that glistened like that. Metal.

He jumped down and started running towards it, hoping to find the hedgehogs and hoping dearly that they hadn't fell again under the grasp of those humans; yes, many of them were good people, but like that man had said, any of them had a choice but to execute the orders of a really evil man.

Minutes passed and he finally reached the source of the glistening; as he had previously guessed. The things that gave off that glistening were made of metal, and they were all over the place; he stopped and hid behind another rock formation. Spying the whole site he noted that they were interested into a huge hole in the ground; his green eyes narrowed. What had happened here?

Robots were taking away from the said hole rocks and parts of others robots and men were surveying their work; on the outside of the working perimeter there were metal carcasses and some smaller, but black, craters. They were strange, for a normal explosion couldn't do that; his eyes narrowed again. He now knew what, or who, had caused those craters; it was someone or something with the ability to harness the Chaos Energy.

Chaos looked down at the emerald embed into his arm, then back up at the site; something was going on, and the two hedgehogs were the targets of many sides. He had to help them for they held the answers to this entire situation, and because he had this sensation that if one of the evil sides that were into play managed to get their hold on them, then the planet would go into a chaotic and disastrous situation.

The watery beast looked at the landscape; something was very familiar, and for the moment he couldn't place a finger on it. Pushing the feeling in the back of his mind he slowly crawled to the site using the rocks to hide himself from the human's, and robot's, eyes.

He stopped as he came near the perimeter and used a car for cover; he put his head out of the hide and watched the scene. A human was speaking with a little thing in his hand "Commander, we reached the bottom of the crater, but the targets are not here. It seems that they fell through a crack in the ground." He said.

A weight was lift from Chaos' heart; the hedgehogs were still free, and hopefully alive. The water creature strained his hearing as the thing in the human's hands replied "Have you sent the robot scouts?" "Yes, they discovered a temple of some sort, but it's underwater and impracticable by any robot or human."

Chaos' eyes widened in shock for a fraction of a second; now he knew why the landscape was familiar in some ways. Some millennia ago, before he went mad, he had passed from here; in those days, however, the place was a prairie near a lush forest. The place had changed a lot, that's why he couldn't remember it clearly; also, the beautiful temple that was dedicated to Lauren was now underground, and according to the human, it was underwater too.

"Any trace of the hedgehogs?" The little thing asked. The man holding it shook lightly his head "No, Commander. They seems to have gone into the temple, and we do not know where they could be now."

The machine crackled for some seconds "Return to base, there's nothing much that we can do right now." The man holding the black little thing nodded "Yes, Sir." He said fidgeting a little with it. After he stopped he put it at his side and called for the other humans.

Chaos looked at them then he hastily returned behind the last rock he used; it took the humans a good half an hour to completely leave the zone, but in the end he was finally free to look at the crater.

The watery beast walked to the edge and looked down; sure enough there was a crack in the bottom, and it was wide enough to let a hedgehog freely fall into it. Chaos stared in thought; he knew that temple. In ancient times it was one of the seven temples that kept the Chaos Emeralds at the end of a deadly trial; only one person managed to reach their ends and recover all the powerful gems, and it always took him at least two days for path.

Chaos went down the slope and stared at the crack; he couldn't go down to help them since the trial was mostly based on lava. He looked up; instead he could go to the end and wait for them to show up. But again, the hedgehogs could have found another way out instead of the path of trials.

The water beast was confused and undecided; should he go down here and try to reach them despite the lava? Or should he wait for them at the end of the path with the risk of not finding them?

Chaos stared deep in thought; he knew Sonic to be a strong willed hedgehog, with a power that could reach his in some ways. And if the black hedgehog was like him, between the two of them they could clear the path without many troubles.

The creature made his version of a sigh and walked up the slope; he had to temp his luck going to the end of that path and wait for them, and maybe he could backtrack until he encountered them.

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In the little house-workshop located in the Mystic Ruins, a twin-tailed fox, an echidna, a bat and a hedgehog were patiently waiting for a sign from the two missing friends.

Suddenly the sound of a door that was slammed open echoed in the house and its vicinity; soon after a feminine voice called for her companions to reach her as soon as possible.

The red echidna that was on the roof, surveying the surroundings for enemies, nearly slipped down from it. He stood up and walked inside using a window near him, and helped increasing that rumble that was produced by the frantic beating on the floor by feet as all the inhabitants of the house reached the source of the call.

The fox was the first one into the computer room "What? What?" He asked to the white bat with pleading eyes. A pink hedgehog was the next "Have you found them, Rouge?" She asked with hope in her voice.

The red echidna was the last to arrive "You know Rouge? I think they heard you across the whole zone…" He said with a hint of a smile and of teasing. Rouge rolled her eyes and waved him off "Bhaa!" She said in response before putting a serious expression on her face.

"Anyway," She started sitting back on the chair "I found the files concerning Sonic and Shadow." She typed a few keys and a text file appeared on the screen.

"We recovered the targets, and brought them to our base in the desert. Everything went according to the plan, until the blue hedgehog rebelled and incredibly broke the bulletproof reinforced glass expressly forged to contain them."

"We sent a squad of robots to the lab, but it was a futile attempt as the blue hedgehog closed the door and destroyed the four robots that were in there. We managed to destroy the heavy metal door, and subdue the two hedgehogs, but for little time."

"The fight was lost and now the two fugitives are hiding somewhere in the base; however The blue one is heavily wounded to the legs and had lost much blood in the fight. Yet, we can't underestimate him as he is more dangerous than the black one."

"We discovered that Chaos, the same water beast that attacked Station Square, has discovered the failed specimens and destroyed them all. We don't know why he's here, but now he posses the yellow Chaos Emerald."

"This is a report from the base on Red Island. The previous base was blown up, the hedgehogs are somewhere into a ancient temple and cannot be reached by our men or robots, and Chaos is trying to reach them."

Rouge sighed and flopped back on the chair "This is what I managed to recover before I had to forcefully close the link." She said sadly. Tails was dumbfounded; he knew Sonic to be dangerous, but not that dangerous.

The vulpine looked at Amy; in her eyes there was happiness, sadness and disbelief. Happiness because Sonic and Shadow had successfully escaped the lab, sadness because they were still out and pursued by the GUN and disbelief for the same reason he was.

Knuckles was also shocked for that; he knew Sonic to some extent and he knew that his willpower beat everything that came in front of him, but he never knew him to be so feared by those humans. Suddenly something clicked in his mind "Say Rouge, have you find the reason why they want Sonic besides Shadow?"

Rouge looked at him confused, then shook her head "No… I was going to find it out but the security found me and I had to break the link before they could track us down…" She responded lowering her ears in defeat.

Tails looked at the red male with curiosity "You seems to know why, Knuckles…" The echidna looked at him and sighed a little before turning to the white bat "Rouge, do you remember what we read in that folder about Shadow?" Her eyes widened for a fraction of a second "Yes, he had a brother, and if I'm thinking what are you thinking then…" "Then Sonic and Shadow are related in some ways." He finished for her.

Tails and Amy were shocked to hear that news; the vulpine was the first to recover "Wait… Shadow was created more than fifty years ago…" "Let me explain, Tails…" Rouge started attracting the attention of all her friends.

"Shadow's brother, who was labeled S-01, was classified dead after an explosion. Now, Shadow for some reasons has strong difficulties remembering about him, but before I went to the archives he came to me for help, saying that he dreamt something regarding his brother." She paused to look at her three listeners "His brother survived the explosion."

The fox and the hedgehog widened their eyes in shock "Then…" Amy started leaning on the door for support. Rouge nodded "Yes, it is possible that his brother went to the surface and had a family… which turns out to be Sonic's family."

The fox shook his head forcefully to clear his mind from the shock "Now I understand why they're so much alike…" He paused and paced a little into the room deep in thinking "But you know what? Sonic never speak of his family… like he never had one… I tried to ask him, but the answer was just a sad smile before he left without speaking."

The other three looked at him; why would Sonic be sad about his family? Unless…

Rouge turned around and resumed his work on the computer "What are you doing now?" Tails asked walking at her side "I'm searching info about Sonic's family…" She said connecting to the common net.

"It… it's no use, Rouge…" Amy said with her head bowed. The three turned and looked at her "There's… there's nothing about Sonic before he started fighting Eggman… It's like he never existed before that… no info, not even a birth certificate…nothing…" She said with a quivering voice.

The female bat stood up and walked in front of her; she put a hand on her shoulder and squeezed it a little "What does this mean?" She finally asked looking up at the older female. Rouge shook her head "I don't know, Amy. But I'm going to find it out." And she took her cellular from her pocket.

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*Holds up hands*
Whoa! Calm down people! I know that this is short, but hey! Reaching the 14 pages is a feat from my end.

Next one:
???
(I don't know at the moment, so this time it'll be a surprise!)

And remember! Reviews are always welcomed! They keep me into the go. Without them I usually slack off…

Az