CHAPTER 48: Discovered

"Where is that key?" Shadow thought aloud, scanning the area around him. The time was twenty past twelve, and the night sky was brightly lit by stars and the full moon. Shadow was standing in an open field, looking about for the glint of gold given off by that which he sought. "It's got to be around here somewhere. They've never moved in the past." He walked around the field, keeping his eyes open, watching for any hint that the key was in the area. He finally stumbled upon it after perhaps two minutes as it rose out of the ground in a pillar of light: he almost completely fell over, in fact. Had he not managed to completely flip over in the air and land on his feet, he would have found himself sniffing dirt.

"Well, think it's safe to say I found it," he said, turning and picking up the key. It was about a foot long, made of pure gold, and had two large teeth at the end. "Weird, though... Maybe I should wait a while, and come back to this one..." He looked up and around, then shook his head. "Nah. Even if my hunch is right, I have an excuse." He skated off toward a hill not far away, yet still not in sight.

"Okay, let's see if my plan works," Shadow said to himself. He threw the key into the air, into the middle of a large golden ring suspended in midair. A large, black keyhole in the middle of the ring vanished, as did they key, and Shadow leapt through. He was instantly transported to the round, yellow arena in which he had met his previous defeat. From memory, he jumped up, avoiding an assault by dozens of blobs of energy. He landed several yards away from his original position, then turned to look at the blobs.

"Holy God," the black hedgehog muttered, seeing the sheer number of assailants. "There's even more of them this time." A large crash redirected Shadow's attention to his rear: the giant hammer-wielding robot from before had just landed. Shadow turned back to the blobs and whistled loudly, yelling, "Come on and get me you rainbow-colored pieces of cow shit!" He then turned and skated toward the robot. It saw him coming, and prepared to smash him into the ground as before. This time, though, Shadow was ready; he dove to the side and rolled away, leaping back to his feet as soon as he was in an upright and crouched position. He quickly changed his direction, heading back for the robot. By this time it had extracted its hammer from the ground, and was pulling back for what appeared to be a sideways strike. However, as Shadow slowed to watch what it did, the robot caught him completely off guard: it threw its hammer at him, sending it spinning toward him, the handle flying in a counterclockwise direction. Shadow just managed to jump onto the side of the hammer's head before he was hit, and as he jumped off, he was reminded that this wasn't a run-of-the-mill robot: it was smarter, stronger, and faster than the variety its design was based on. Shadow took these facts into account before he decided to try a very risky move. He jumped at the robot, spinning in the air. He uncurled and landed in a crouch on the robot's head. He waited perhaps a second before he jumped straight up, as high as he could. He rose perhaps ten feet before gravity began to pull him back downward. He landed on the robot once more as its handcompleted a secondsweep of its head. He jumped off this time, behind the robot. The blobs of energy had nearly caught up with him by this point, and a few had leapt toward Shadow's last position. They touched the robot's head and torso and exploded, taking off the robot's top half.

"YES!" Shadow yelled before a white hole opened in the ground below him. He fell into it, and landed hard on the ground in the middle of the field in which he had found the goldenkey. He sat up and shook his head, then said to himself, "Okay, that was just strange. Wonder what I did wrong."

"Thought it was all for fun," Sonic's voice said, coming from behind Shadow, who jumped to his feet with a start. He turned to face Sonic, who was holding the yellow Emerald in his left hand. He was staring at Shadow accusingly. "And I also thought you were only trying once."

"I had another idea, and I had to know if it would work," Shadow retorted. "It apparently didn't."

"I noticed," Sonic said."It was a real clever trick. I just got lucky enough to stumble upon the answer."

"What was the answer?" Shadow asked.

"You know the huge hammer bot?" Sonic asked. "It had what I think wasa spring concealed inside the head of the hammer. I faked it out, then I jumped onto the hammer head to get a little extra height to get over the blobs. I got shot over 100 feet into the air, and I passed the Emerald on the way up. I just got it on the way down."

"Wow, that IS clever," Shadow said in awe. "But I jumped onto the hammer's head too, when the robot threw it at me. How come I wasn't thrown into the air?"

"The hammer was embedded in the ground when I jumped on it," Sonic said. "The spring was firmly planted in the ground. That would have been more likely to propel you upward than if the thing was in the air."

"That, and now that I think about it, I jumped on the SIDE of the hammer," Shadow said, rubbing his chin.

"That could possibly be it too," Sonic said.

"Well, doesn't matter now," Shadow said. "Don't suppose you'd consider letting me have that, would you?" He pointed to the Emerald.

"Nope," Sonic said, tossing it up into the air. He caught it again before saying, "I won it fair and square, so I'm keeping it. Unless you want to race for it."

"Name the time and place," Shadow said, grinning widely; a race sounded good to him.

"Back here at three in the afternoon, day after tomorrow," Sonic said. "That should give me some time to enjoy my prize before it goes up for grabs again."

"Enjoy it how, pray tell?" Shadow asked.

"Enjoy the satisfaction of having it, of course," Sonic said. "I'll see you back here when you're ready." He ran past Shadow at this point, heading back toward Station Square.

"Damn it!" Shadow exclaimed once Sonic was out of earshot, which was rather quickly. "Better consult Dave on this one. Think Sonic's starting to realize I'm not just playing some silly game."

Yes, this chapter was shorter. Yes, it was quicker than the last one. Yes, that's a good thing. Yes, Shadow might be in a little bit of trouble. I hope you enjoyed; I know I did. I was eating chocolate the whole time I was typing it out. Mmm, chocolate...

Oh, one more thing: this chapter has two other parts, which I'm going to upload separately, making a grand total of 3 out of 1. I do this because I wanted to get at least part of it up before I go see my dad. So, don't think this is it for this chapter, not just yet.