And here we go again with another chapter!

I would have updated sooner, sorry about that btw, but I didn't. Ah, honesty is so refreshing!

Disclaimer: Authoress owns not Sonic

Claimer: Authoress does own Raven, Fount of Light, and other made-up stuff!

"Now, how exactly did I end up traveling through time?" Sonic wondered to himself as he wandered the corridors of the ARK.

Well, actually, the blue hedgehog was PRETTY certain that he wasn't actually traveling through time. Somehow, the Fount of Light was recreating the space colony ARK of over fifty years ago.

Complete with a matched set of Ultimate Life Form brothers.

Although the fact that Raven and Shadow were both different colors in their childhood did confuse him. That and they didn�t seem too Ultimate to him. In fact, had he not known what they would end up becoming, Sonic could have sworn that he was watching a pair of regular hedgehog kids hanging out and being, well, BROTHERLY.

But he had more important things to worry about right now - finding his friends, finding some way to beat Raven, and finding some way out of this crazy dimension.

Especially since Sonic couldn't do that 'Think-about-it-and-it-magically-appears' thing anymore. He knew, he'd tried to get back his Super form a couple times now without success.

"Oh, Sonic! I've been looking all over for you!" came Tails� voice.

The two-tailed fox was hovering down a maintenance ladder just above Sonic's head, and the blue hedgehog waited for his little buddy to catch up.

"You too, huh?" Sonic asked. "Everything's gotten even weirder - if that's even possible at this point."

"I wouldn't put anything past a place that grants wishes," Tails said.

"And the Fount of Light seems to be recreating the ARK now," he added, "The way it was when Raven and Shadow were kids up here. But this makes absolutely no sense at all!"

"Why would it ever make sense?� Sonic wondered as he and Tails set out in search of - well, actually they really didn't know exactly what they were looking for, so it was more like they just started walking around, "This place is insane - just like Raven. No wonder he wanted to come here so badly, they go together perfectly."

"Sonic, I�m being serious!" Tails exclaimed. "How many times have you run into the younger versions of Shadow and Raven? I've talked with them four times so far and they never recognize me. And that's because this is all just a big memory!"

"A memory?"

"But what confuses me is why Raven would want the Fount of Light to recreate his childhood," Tails continued, "It�s just too -"

"Hold up," Sonic interrupted, pointing at something up ahead.

That something was the young, not-yet-Ultimate Shadow. In this memory, Shadow looked almost exactly as he did now, minus the red eyes and stripes. But they had never seen any version of Shadow looking so upset.

"Hey, what's wrong?" Sonic asked the young Shadow.

The gray hedgehog jumped, having not realized that two people were standing behind him. Blinking at Sonic and Tails in a clear lack of recognition, he paused a minute before sighing.

"It's...um, well..." Young Shadow mumbled.

"Hey," said Tails, having thought of something, "Where's your brother? Don't you two usually stick together?"

"What are you talkin' about?" Sonic hissed at the fox in shock.

"As kids, remember?" Tails hissed back.

"Oh!" blinked Sonic.

At the mention of his brother, the younger version of Shadow lowered his sad, orange-colored gaze.

"That's who I'm worried about," Young Shadow finally admitted, "He had to go do some procedure thing...the Doctor said I'm not allowed to watch or anything...but, I have this really bad feeling...that something really horrible is happening to him."

"You sure care about Raven a lot," Sonic said, surprised with this side of Shadow he had never thought existed.

"Well, duh," Young Shadow snapped, "What are you, a stupid slowpoke or something?"

Normally Sonic would have never let Shadow get away with calling him any names - least of all with calling Sonic slow - but he just shrugged and rolled his eyes.

"Just because I like ya, I'll forget you just said that," Sonic said, "Besides, we haven't got any time for this. We have to find - "

An explosion rocked the corridor. And an ominous trickle of smoke began leaking out of the heavy sealed doors that Young Shadow had been watching before the other two's arrival.

"Is this another memory?" Tails wondered as the three of them darted towards the door.

The doors were blown outward before they got halfway there. More smoke billowed into the corridor, and from out of the smoke stepped Raven - the oldest and most completely insane version.

"I sorta doubt it," Sonic answered as he and Tails took up defensive stances.

They were both wondering what crazy thing was going to come next, but for once Raven seemed almost calm. Actually, he seemed really, really happy about what he had just done.

"It won't take me again," the white hedgehog said, expression dreamy, "I love this place even more now - I finally got to kill the evil monster. Dead, dead, dead!"

Spying his opposition, Raven looked them over without a care in the world - until his sights landed on the younger version of Shadow. Then Raven bared his teeth in a feral grin.

"And it gets better all the time..." Raven purred, "Because now I also am going to get to kill HIM!"

On the last word, Raven leapt into the air on his jets. Powering up a big ball of Chaos Energy, he fired it right at the unsuspecting - and extremely freaked out - Young Shadow.

There was no way for Sonic or Tails to intercept the blast at the speed it was going. But at the very last instant a dark blur flashed in front of Sonic's eyes.

Right before everything was blotted out by the Chaos Energy's sickly-colored light, and by the roar of the explosion. It took a while for everything to clear up again afterwards.

And the sight that was there to see was simply shocking.