The time was now 7am the next day. Shadow fluttered his eyes open and found that he was still in the hospital and had fallen asleep in a big chair just next to Amy's bed. Amy was asleep and their new son, Ray lay asleep in one of the hospital cots, just opposite the bed.

Shadow wiped his eyes and stood up. He looked out of the window. The morning was bright and he could see the sparkling dew resting on the grass.

"I'll go get some air." He thought to himself.

Shadow tip toed from the room and closed the door behind him.

As he walked through the waiting room, Shadow found that it was empty except for one person. Sonic lay asleep, taking up 3 chairs. Shadow blinked as Sonic woke up, yawning and stretching his arms out.

"Sonic, you're still here?" Shadow said.

Sonic sat up.

"Looks that way doesn't it?" he replied, smiling.
"Why?" Shadow asked.
"I decided to wait in case you woke up and needed company home. But I guess it slipped my mind." He said, chuckling.

"Well, I'm going for some morning air. You wanna come?" Shadow offered.
"Go on then." Sonic replied and stood up.

The two hedgehogs walked out of the hospital. They ended up walking down the promenade, just next to the beach (But the hospital wasn't that far away from the beach so they hadn't walked a long distance at all!)

"So, where did the others go?" Shadow asked his friend.
"Home, I guess." Sonic answered. "We're all really happy for you guys."
"Thanks. To be honest though, Sonic, I never thought that this would happen." Said Shadow.
"What do you mean?" Sonic asked.

"Well I always thought she was more destined for you. But then…I dunno. Something just clicked. All those years ago, back on the ARK, she reminded me of Maria and I felt a familiar feeling inside me."

"And over time you guys hit it off!" Sonic said. "Meh. I never really felt that way about Amy, as you most likely know! Don't get me wrong! I care for her dearly but…I'm just not that interested in finding true love quite yet."

The two carried on walking and stopped on the beach. Shadow sat on the wall and looked at the morning sky. Sonic leapt over the wall and stood on the sand. He took in a deep breath of the fresh morning air.

But then something happened that they didn't expect. The earth began to shake slightly. The two hedgehogs blinked and looked around.

"What's going on!" Sonic yelled above the thudding noises.

Shadow jumped down from the wall and landed next to Sonic. They began to hear a familiar laughter from beneath them. It sounded muffled but they could make out who it was.

"Oh no…" Shadow thought.

Suddenly the ground beneath their feet burst apart. The two of them flung themselves to the side to avoid falling through the sand. A large drill had appeared there and was spinning loudly and madly. More and more of it arose until it was clear that it was attached to a vehicle. The huge vehicle drove upward until it was fully visible, amongst the sand clouds.

Sonic and Shadow blinked as the sand rested and they saw the thing in full. The door of the machine opened and a small horde of robots jumped out and stood on the sand. They were followed by Eggman.

"Hello there,my friends. It certainly has been a long time! Good to see you again!" he said loudly, grinning with anticipation.

The two hedgehogs stood up carefully.

"I can't say the same about you, Eggman!" Sonic yelled.

"I'm glad I found you so quickly. For now I shall finally get rid of your annoying presence ahead of schedule!" Eggman laughed.

"Yeah yeah yeah! I've heard it all before Eggman! Bring it on!" Sonic shouted back and leapt at Eggman, fists raised.

Shadow blinked as he saw Sonic jump at the doctor.

Eggman's response was very unexpected. He brought out, from behind him, a large gun and whacked it across Sonic's face. Sonic was hurtled back at a strangly fast pace. He hit the wall head first. The wall collapsed as Sonic hit it and a huge dust and sand cloud appeared in the air. Shadow gasped.

"Sonic!" he yelled but there was no response.
Eggman laughed.

"Muahahahahahaha! I have far more expert plans this time around, you stupid hedgehogs!"

The cloud began to settle and Shadow could now see Sonic lying unconscious, several bricks lying on top of him.

Eggman switched various switched on the gun and a humming noise began to come from it. As the humming became louder, a strange purple light appeared at the firing point of the gun. It became bigger and bigger.

Shadow looked at it in confusing, not knowing quite what to do. Eggman pointed the gun at Sonic.

"This is it you blue vermin. Time for you to be sent away…15 years in the future!" he yelled and fired the gun.

Without thinking, Shadow leapt forward and stood in front of Sonic's unconscious body. As he did so, the purple ray hit him.

Shadow could feel a horrible feeling going through and around his body. He felt as if he were being pulled through the air at a speed that even he couldn't outdo.

Eggman cursed as he saw Shadow disappear in a spark of purple light.

"Bastard! The fool got in the way! The wrong hedgehog has been sent forward in time!" he yelled.

He looked at Sonic's body, lying amongst the debris.

"No matter! I can still take over the world!"

He turned to his robots.

"Pick him up and put him in the truck. With him kept in custody, I'll be able to find the chaos emeralds with no trouble. Then they'll be mine and their power will make me Overlord of this puny planet!"

He laughed loudly as his minions picked up Sonic and thrust him into the huge drill truck.