Chapter 3

Sonic watched her from a distance, through the window of Bueno Nacho, watched her enjoy her time with Ron. He didn't hide, but he didn't exactly want to be visible to anyone. Currently, he was up in a tree, swinging one leg casually with the breeze, thinking about home.

She reminded him so much of Amy, both how she used to be, and she is now. Blushing every now and again, but confident and sure of herself. I mean, she's also, like, a superhero! She definitely knows how to kick butt. It didn't really seem like people gave her enough credit for the good she did, except Ron and her other friend, the one who fainted in front of him. He smiled at the thought. That was definitely nothing new.

But, without all his friends, it didn't feel homey enough. Only Tails and Shadow had gotten teleported there.

~Flashback~

Eggman had all the emeralds, including the master emerald. Somehow, no one was sure how, but somehow, he'd managed to capture Shadow and throw him in a laser cage. The only way to stop SpaceColony Ark from running straight into the surface of Mobius was to get the chaos emeralds away from the master control. But, the only way to do that was if Shadow was able to help, since he could control the energy of the chaos emeralds. Knuckles could only do so much.

But, there wasn't much time.

Sonic sprinted down the corridors at high speed, searching for Shadow, anywhere he could be. Instead, he found the control room—where the emeralds were being sucked dry of their power.

Maybe we don't need Shadow, Sonic thought hopefully, reaching a hand out to one of the emeralds. Since I can do Chaos Control, maybe I can do this too.

But, Eggman decided to show his face. A massive swarm of robots followed quickly behind him, forcing him away from the emeralds. He dodged the various shots and lasers from the robots, knocking a few of them out of the air, except there were too many. And, he was losing time quickly.

As quickly as he could, he spin-dashed the main computer console and leapt away, just barely avoiding the ensuing explosion. It took out most of the robots, but not enough. Backing into the cold, metal wall, his brain whirred, trying to find something to do.

"Sonic! I've finally beaten you! At long last!" Eggman shouted at the top of his lungs. "After 10 years of this back and forth, I've finally done the impossible!"

For once in his life, Sonic had nothing quippy to respond with. The Ark was falling toward Mobius. Eggman was about to obliterate several dimensions with the power of the chaos emeralds. There was no way out. Not this time. Until…

"I always have to save your butt, Faker. Chaos Spear!" There was a bright explosion of light and more than half of the robots hovering instantly disintegrated. Sonic spin-dashed the rest of them successfully.

"You were sayin', Eggman?" he said cockily, giving Shadow a thumb's up. "You should give up your cliché lines. You know they never work for ya!"

"No, no, no!" Eggman yelled, bouncing up and down on his EggMobile in despair. "You haven't won yet! I have almost drained all the power from the chaos emeralds. I will rule all of reality!"

"Don't you learn, Egghead? You can't win! You never can!" Sonic shouted back. Shadow found his way toward the emerald console and placed a hand on one of them. His face contorted in concentration.

Suddenly, alarms began blaring and the lights turned red in warning. "Power levels decreasing. Approaching gravity field of Mobius. Detected breach in control room."

"Now, you tell me?" Eggman muttered to himself.

"Guys!" Tails appeared in the doorway, panting. "We're still falling to Mobius! Its gravity has us! We've got to change its direction!"

"I know that!" snapped Shadow, pulling each chaos emerald from its place on the console.

"Super forms?" Sonic asked, ready for action.

In reply, the darker hedgehog threw the emeralds up simultaneously, and they automatically formed a circle around both hedgehogs. In a split second, the emeralds disappeared, their energy having been absorbed by them, turning them gold and radiating positive energy.

"Alright! Let's do this thing!" Sonic cheered, zooming upward, ten times as fast as usual. Shadow followed suit, and they appeared outside instantly. In their super forms, they didn't need to breathe oxygen to survive, so they were fine in outer space. Mobius was slowly growing larger as the Ark moved toward it.

No words spoken, both braced themselves against the Ark and pushed as hard as they could. They could feel it slow fraction by fraction…but it wasn't enough. Their surroundings were getting warmer and warmer as they approached the atmosphere. At this rate, they wouldn't have the time or strength to stop its descent!

Shadow suddenly stopped, looking overly frustrated. He reached for the golden rings around his wrists. "I'm done with this." The moment he slipped off his second ring, blinding red light exploded from his body.

Neither of them noticed the giant laser cannon aimed in their direction from the Ark. But, it wasn't an ordinary laser cannon that they were used to. A bright green beam erupted from its end, and it was too late for either of them to dodge it. It collided with them head-on, their forms disappearing in the light.

Sonic grit his teeth. Fraction by fraction, the chaos energy within him was being sucked away. He could feel it chipping away at his stamina. To his left, Shadow was struggling as well. He was practically made of chaos energy. The red glow from the removal of his inhibitor rings died in the green one surrounding them.

Suddenly, the cannon fire stopped, leaving the hedgehogs exhausted by their lack of energy. Panting, they saw the X-Tornado with its own cannon smoking with recent usage.

"Damn it," Shadow muttered angrily, "Hardly have anything left." He started to fade back to normal, same with Sonic.

"What was that thing?" Sonic asked, trying to regain his focus and keep alert. The chaos emeralds reformed near them, drifting in space, their glow less bright than before.

"Doesn't matter," Shadow replied, reaching for an emerald. "We have to do Chaos Control."

"Are you crazy?! In that state? Who knows what'll happen to you!" Sonic retorted, swimming through space to get the other emeralds.

"I'll be fine!" he ground out through clenched teeth. He shoved both his inhibitor rings into his shoes.

Before he could say more, a voice came out of nowhere, through a comm in both their ears. "Sonic, Shadow! The Ark! Eggman rerouted the power to self-destruct!"

"What!" Shadow yelled, the chaos emerald glowing a bright red at the same time.

"If that chaos energy blows, several dimensions could be destroyed!" Tails shouted in their ears.

"He absorbed our chaos energy to use for the self-destruct," Sonic whispered, his nemesis' plan coming together in his mind. "Can you override it?"

"No, everything's been shut down! I can't access anything at all!"

Shadow grabbed 2 chaos emeralds from Sonic's grip and vanished.

"Shadow, wait!" he yelled after him. He followed as fast as he could, knowing that Shadow could die from what he was going to attempt. "Chaos Control!" he shouted, reappearing inside the power core room.

The core was flashing red, at the point of overloading as the self-destruct neared. Tails was with Shadow, who was on his hands and knees over the 3 emeralds in front of the core.

"Shadow, stop! Don't!" Sonic yelled. Dashing forward, he reached for a chaos emerald, but he was too late.

Everything turned dark gray and ceased moving except him, Tails, who had his hand on Shadow's shoulder, and Shadow.

"Chaos…Control!" Shadow yelled, placing his hands on the emeralds, just as Sonic touched one. A bright flash of purple light exploded from the emeralds, including the ones in Sonic's arms, and the world went dark.

The next thing Sonic knew, he'd hit soft ground in a grassy lawn. It didn't look anywhere like Mobius. Sonic sat up quickly and glanced around. Trees and a few buildings, but no people. It was early morning, and the sun was just barely coming up on the horizon. A car passed by on a road nearby. A cold breeze blew, and he shivered. No fur…He was wearing clothes, too! Black pants with a bright blue shirt—the same shade at his quills. His quills! He felt his head…Fluffy, scruffy, pointy, not sharp like quills. At least, his shoes looked the same—red with a white stripe and gold buckled on the side.

He heard a groan from nearby and saw Tails sit up, next to him Shadow, who didn't move at all. Tails looked the same as before as a yellow fox with two tails. It was Shadow who didn't look right. His hair looked exactly the same with the red highlights, but he didn't have fur either. He had a black shirt and pants on, and his shoes were the same, as well.

"Tails, are you alright?" he asked, crouching beside Shadow.

His buddy's eyes widened in shock. "Y-you look…human! What happened?"

Sonic chuckled. "I thought you might know the answer to that. Know where we are?"

Tails shook his head, glancing around. "I don't recognize any of this. Is Shadow okay? That must have taken a lot out of him."

"I told him not to," Sonic seethed, pounding his fist on the grass. "Wait, where are the chaos emeralds?!" Frantically, the two searched the patch of grass and a little beyond for any sign of the colored gems. Nothing. "This gets better and better."

"Let's find somewhere secluded for now to form a plan," Tails suggested. "Shadow should be waking up any time now. Try not to let anyone see us."

"Right," he agreed, slinging Shadow's limp form over his shoulder. "Sure you can keep up?" he teased.

"You bet!" With that, the two sped off toward a less crowded part of the town they landed in, one flying, the other running at top speed—both unseen.

They reached a small forested area just outside the town, which turned out to be more of a smaller city. Sonic laid Shadow down at the base of a tree and immediately got comfy in the tree above. Tails landed nearby and opened his tool belt.

"I don't have much here," he said worriedly, "but I hope I can make us something that'll help."

"You got this!" Sonic said confidently, giving his friend a thumb's up. "Meanwhile—" he dangled a leg over the branch he was laying on "—I'll just take a small nap right here for a while."

Loud voices awoke the sleeping hedgehog—now human—in the tree, not minutes later. They sounded to be approaching them. Uh oh, Sonic thought and jumped down from his branch. "Tails?" The fox was nowhere in sight and neither was Shadow. He was the only one around and someone was coming his way. From what he could tell, one someone. He was too slow to hide before a girl's shrill squeal reached his ears.

His eyes found a teenage girl with short brown hair and a cell phone in hand. She wore a purple crop top with a plaid mini skirt. The expression on her face resembled one that Amy Rose had often given him just before and during when she would chase him for hours on end. He almost ran now, given the sudden resemblance. But, he didn't, in case she could possibly help him in some way.

"Hey," he started, but he barely got that far before she came straight up to him and put her arms around his neck. He threw his arms up in defense, awkwardly.

"I haven't seen you around here, cutie!" she squealed, her face morphing to sweet innocence, her phone call forgotten.

Sonic gently unhooked himself and took a step back, hoping that scene was not being made. "Heh-heh, yeah. I'm definitely new around here. I—"

"Great! My name is Bonnie Rockwaller! You can just call me Bonnie," she said quickly.

Oh, I already know where this will go, Sonic thought, almost dreading the next few minutes. He smiled in spite of himself, though. "Maybe, you could show me around town," he said, flashing a charming smile.

~End of Flashback~

Sonic cringed at the memory, finding it the epitome of awkwardness, but, at least, he had been able to find 5 of the chaos emeralds with her help—without her knowledge. He felt quite accomplished that he'd managed that.

He watched Kim for a few more seconds before speeding off to find the last 2 emeralds.