Chapter 2: An untold secret…

Shadow was struggling back and forth, trying to fight the current. He was being pulled under continuously. Now he wished he had listened to Sonic. Shadow looked for anything to grab onto to reach land. Not far from the cliff, was a jetty. Sticking out into the ocean. It was long enough to reach land, if Shadow could swim there. He tried to fight the currents, and at least moved a little each second. He felt like something was giving him a will to keep going. He pulled with all of his might. He realized he was making it. He kept on. He was very close to a huge rock he might be able to grab and use to pull himself up. He was feeling weak, when one final wave pushed him hard against the rock. He grabbed it, as the wave fell back into the ocean, Shadow slowly climbed onto the jetty. He looked over to his right, as he collapsed, onto the hot rock beneath him. He opened his eyes to see Sonic running at him, from the other side of the jetty. "That hedgehog is started to really piss me off." Shadow said under his breath.

Shadow got up. Sonic's running slowed to a jog, then to a walk. He approached Shadow, who was coughing. "I told you not to jump off of the train." Sonic said. Shadow stopped coughing. He got up on his feet and started to walk. "Leave me alone Sonic…" Shadow said. "Geez, I just came to see if you were alright, why again were you here?" Sonic asked. "Nothing, just to clear my mind by wandering in the silence of the Mystic Ruins jungle." Shadow said. "By the way, someone was asking around for you at the top of the hill, after the train departed." Sonic said. "What?" Shadow asked. "Someone was looking for you…" Sonic said. "What did they look like?" Shadow asked. "I couldn't tell, whoever it was had a black cloak on, and a black hood over their head. But I could see long gray hair. I'm pretty sure it may have been an Echidna." Sonic said. "What did you tell him?" Shadow asked. "Nothing… I didn't see were you were until I had looked over the cliff, then I came rushing down to see what had happened." Sonic said. "Where are they now?" Shadow asked. "I don't know, they walked off, and when I turned to say I saw you, the dude was way out of sight. He looked freaky though." Sonic said. Shadow started to just walk towards the other end of the jetty. Sonic was following, until they reached the top of the hill. Sonic realized Shadow was walking towards the jungles of the Mystic Ruins.

"Where are you going?" Sonic asked. "I already told you that, to clear my head." Shadow said. "But… don't you want to look for whoever is looking around to find you?" Sonic asked. "I'm really not that worried about." Shadow said. "Okay…" Sonic said. Shadow was walking away from sight, as the scenery changed into a jungle, from a clear plain. Shadow headed into the jungle, where he started to run.

Shadow became lost in the big maze of the jungle. He started to run through it. But yet, not realizing hours had passed. His attention that time was going by didn't come until he reached a dead end, through a clearing. Suddenly, he realized it was dark outside. It had to have been hours. He looked through a clearing. There was a big cliff, with police poles around it, saying: DO NOT CROSS SHEER DROP OFF.

Shadow walked along the poles. He looked over the cliff, and not far from the cliff's end was a big glass dome. Yes, a glass dome. It looked just like some kind of greenhouse for scientists. All of a sudden, it was strange. Shadow felt a very tempting, curious urge to go find out what was in there. Whether it be nothing and ordinary, or something new and strange. But as he was walking out from a pair of bushes, he heard footsteps, and saw two shadowy figures, not visible. Shadow jumped back behind the bushes, and hid. He soon saw the figures clearly now, they were robots! But whose? The robots approached a large door, that had a security camera attached to it. And something else, that looked like a security scanner for some type of ID. Shadow watched the robots. They appeared to be large and red, and seemed familiar. But why did they? They were holding staffs of some kind, as a weapon. One of them put their arms up to the ID check scanner, the speaker attached to it spoke. "ID user 0453056." It said, "Valid ID, enter laboratory." The robots entered, slowly, and Shadow knew that door wouldn't stay open forever. It would shut and he would miss his chance, but the camera was watching, and had a speaker attached to it, apparently to listen for intruders nearby, that weren't seen. Shadow had an idea. He picked up a broken branch, that was old and rotted. It was large enough to make a distraction. Shadow picked it up, and chunked it as hard as he could at the opposite direction of his path into the lab. It made a loud noise as it shatter and broke, as it rustled up in the bushes. The security camera started to turn in the direction of the noise, and Shadow quickly ran, and jumped into the lab, just as the door was shutting.

When he turned to what he thought was the lab, but only a very long hall, that was rather not light, but dimmed with neon yellow lights across the floor mat. And another door at the end of the hall, that hopefully led into the actual glass dome's internal lab structure. Shadow started to walk down the hall. And saw the robots, walking not far in front of him. Maybe they weren't hostile, Shadow took a step forward, and the robots immediately turned around. Their staffs started to light up, and turned to a bright blue. Shadow could see electrical currents moving through to points of the staff. "Those staffs will shock me if they touch me!" Shadow said. Shadow tried to spin-dash into the robots, and they almost hit him, as he rolled to dodge it. "That almost hit me!" Shadow thought. He ran to kick at one, and it stabbed at him, he dodged it, and put out his hand. "CHAOS CONTROL!" He yelled. But nothing happened. No energy balls were fired from his hand. "Oh crap, I forgot that I threw away my chaos emerald!" Shadow said. He wasn't able to use his chaos force. He jumped up, and dodged yet another stab. He couldn't believe he had thrown away his only emerald left. Shadow threw in a punch and hit the robot, but it was made of a hard metalloid. Shadow didn't see but, the other robot was closing in behind him. Shadow was trapped. So he jumped up over the staffs, and over the other robot. He made a run for the door which would get him into the lab. He didn't even understand himself at the moment. Why was it so tempting to see inside that lab? Shadow was about to take off running when he felt a sharp sting in his neck. He fell to the floor, and couldn't move! He had been stabbed with the staff, and thrown into paralysis. He was paralyzed, and wasn't sure if it would ware off. One of the robots grabbed his wrist, and the other robot grabbed his opposite wrist, and the two started to drag him in the direction of the door, which led into the lab. Shadow knew something bad would come as punishment. And if it included death, Shadow wasn't taking any chances. But he just couldn't move. He tried, and no avail. Shadow suddenly felt angry, and waves of energy were bursting through his body. All of a sudden, the robots quit moving. And to Shadow's surprise, they just exploded, and Shadow was thrown back. Smoke filled a few parts o the hall, as the robots burned. Shadow, even though released, couldn't get up and move, due to the side effects of the paralysis.

It was about thirty minutes when the currents wore off, and Shadow, disoriented, got up to walk over to the robots. How could they just blow up? "That's weird." Shadow said. He ran over to the other end of the hall way, and another door, of course, was there. Shadow approached it, and it opened for him automatically. As expected, there was a large, lab looking type of room. Shadow walked in, as the door closed behind him. In the middle of the room, was a glass case, with many computers surrounding it. To the left and right, were two more doors, this was probably one of the many rooms. Shadow turned his attention to the glass case, and realized it had a large piece of stone inside of it, a carved one. He walked closer to see what it had on it. It had writing, of a different language, and pictures. Of a hedgehog, who looked much like Shadow. The hedgehog had long curly quills, and long stripes of color down them. To the left, was an echidna holding a weapon, the two sides seemed to be battling. Shadow started to turn around when he bumped into a computer, and accidentally hit the mouse. Suddenly, the screen came online. It slowly lighted up, and it had documents. Documents that said strange things: Shadow's past, The war, The emeralds, and many other related stuff. In the consol was a green chaos emerald. Shadow picked it up. What was an emerald doing in here? He removed it from computer, and clenched it. What was this place? Who owned it? How was it related to Shadow? He moved the mouse over to click on Shadow's past, but suddenly, some alarm went off. The lights in the room turned bright red, and an alarm was buzzing through the building. A speaker on the wall said: "Intruder alert! Sector 1: Level 56."

Shadow made a run out of the door still holding the emerald, and through the hall, as he made it to the other side, where the other door was, robots came pouring through the other door. "How do I get this thing open?" Shadow asked himself. He remembered the emerald in his hand. He put his hand out. "CHAOS CONTROL!" Shadow blasted the door down, and made another quick run, blindingly through the jungle, not realizing were he was going, just escaping. He ran through the jungle, not seeing a clearing, not too far ahead of him. He could see robots coming toward him from behind him. His leg got caught on a vine, and he tripped into a clearing, an odd, square shaped clearing. It was as if someone mowed all of the grass and cut down the trees in this part. In the center, was a huge temple. What was a temple doing out here?

Shadow immediately got up from his spot, where he had tripped, and ran towards the temple, where an entrance was. Shadow jumped in, and was about to stop, when he felt himself drop, and he felt the chaos emerald fly out of his hand, what was happening. Everything went black…

Outside the temple, robots gathered around, one was about to enter the entrance, when a stone came crashing down over it. No other entrance was found around the temple, and what was it, and who was behind this? Shadow lay unconscious inside the temple, in a room, he had fallen into a booby trap. No telling how long it would be before the robots found him…

END CHAPTER

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