Disclaimer: I don't own any of the characters involved.

A Winner Is Two: Chiaroscuro

First Battle (vs. Dr. Robotnik and the Bride): The Unparalleled

Shadow hadn't gotten far with his new emeralds before communications picked back up. "Shadow, where are you?" It was Sakyo, and he sounded a bit desperate.

"I'm in the base. Name where you need me to be and I'll be there in seconds."

"Good. My data tells me Robotnik has been plowing through guards at the upper level. Kill him."

Shadow shivered involuntarily and rubbed the spot where Robotnik had bludgeoned him on top of the head. He'd been in bed for three days from the concussion. "Can anybody else do it?"

"Mystique and Jiraiya are engaged elsewhere, Incredible's fighting Kakashi, and I don't think we'll be able to trust either of them after that. Jade's doing gods know what, and Smoker's out for Ofdensen's blood – long story. Tashigi will be on her way, but he's almost at the wide elevator for his ATV, and she can't intercept him in time. I need you to be at the bottom of that elevator, waiting for him, because-"

"Because giving Eggman a helicopter is like giving me all the Chaos Emeralds," Shadow finished grimly.

"Right. Don't let him take any of the aircraft." Sakyo could be heard giving orders to somebody else for a minute. "I'm out. You have your orders, and we have our expectations of you."

"You're right… and you guys came through on your end of the bargain. It's time I made good on mine."

Robotnik expected flying, self-replicating demon piranhas to flood down the hallway behind him at any minute, but nothing seemed to be giving chase. It was downright reassuring to sideswipe the last Klokateer in the way, swipe his stolen keycard in the slot next to the suitably wide elevator, pull the ATV into the elevator, which was already on the right floor, and slam the DOOR CLOSE button just as the man was recovering his weapon.

He caught his breath while he studied the buttons. The CAFÉ button made him remember how long it had been since he had eaten a decent sub sandwich, but he knew the base was starting to fall apart around his ears. He had heard the distant 'booms'… and the screams... although interestingly enough, the power was still on. Finally, the HANGAR button caught his eye. If there were any air transport vehicles at all, they'd be down there. As handy as the geothermal-powered second stage of his ATV would be, it wouldn't get him back to the mainland.

The elevator ride was uneventful, but Robotnik was still jittery. He'd aim a rifle at the air vent on the ceiling every few seconds, his mustache practically standing on end. BORED employed some disturbing people – a blue shapeshifting woman, a mysterious hedgehog who seemed to know him, and now a man who summoned things. Nasty things. Robotnik didn't wonder if there was a demon around anymore; he wondered how many and how powerful. Hopefully there would be something unoccupied in the hangar that he could take to get off the island; once he was home and safe at one of his labs, he'd come back to level the island, if its owners hadn't already.

The door slid open. The hedgehog who had introduced himself as Shadow was right on the other side. He wasn't on a vehicle this time, but he was armed, wearing a pair of pistols on a belt and a bandolier that had no less than three Chaos Emeralds. "Good evening, Doctor," he said coldly. Robotnik wasn't sure if he hesitated with the gunfire more out of recognition or because Shadow hadn't called him 'Eggman'. The fact that he hadn't drawn a weapon helped, although Robotnik quickly realized that Shadow would probably have a supernaturally fast draw anyway. Instead, his hands were on his hips disapprovingly. "What are you doing here?"

"I'm here to take a vehicle and get off the island," Robotnik answered. "Since your employers kidnapped me, it's only fair."

"Most of your opponents were kidnapped," Shadow corrected. "As I understand it, you joined willingly."

Robotnik cursed inwardly. This was true. "Fine. New line of reasoning. I desire aerial transport off the island and have the power to seize it."

"Wrong." Shadow's eyes narrowed. "I am the Ultimate Life Form. Robotnik, you may not remember me, but I was created by your own grandfather, with the help of a greater power he did not fully understand. I have on my person everything I need to destroy you utterly. You have one chance to take that elevator back up and leave the way you came."

Robotnik had been sneering since 'Ultimate Life Form', with only a brief break to look surprised at the mention of his grandfather. "My grandfather died several decades ago and you don't sound a day over twenty-five, so please excuse my skepticism. As for the way I came… I'm afraid that's not an option." He fingered his rifle nervously. Shadow was dangerous, but he was the safer bet compared to what lay behind, because he was mostly a known factor. A gun-using, pragmatic Sonic? He could handle that, although the Chaos Emeralds were a wild card.

"There are aircraft here, but the staff needs them," Shadow explained. "Thanks to people like you, we have some dead and wounded."

"I didn't go out of my way to kill them," Robotnik said defensively. "I had guns and a vehicle, and they were in my way. They had the option to let me pass."

"They were just doing their job, Robotnik," Shadow retorted, although he kept any anger out of his voice. "As am I." He drew his magnum and took a shot.

Whatever Shadow was, he was not the marksman of the century. The bullet hit Robotnik in his good left arm, not in his vulnerable head or the part of his armor that Ban had damaged. Still, the force of the bullet was exceptional enough to cause Robotnik to flinch and spin his chair partway around. By the time Robotnik had raised his rifle and spun back to face Shadow, he had zipped backwards and slid behind a crate for cover.

Robotnik kept one eye on where he knew Shadow was hiding, although the other noted idly that there were at least six helicopters still on the ground – smaller gunships and larger air transports. A VTOL jet also sat prepped for takeoff. Henchmen of mostly the suited variety were bustling about, getting the vehicles all ready for takeoff, or – as Shadow had said – loading injured men into the transport copters. There was also a harbor in the distance, along with a hole near the cavern ceiling that led to the smoke-filled valley in the middle of the island.

Shadow burst from the cover on the other side, and before Robotnik could fully react, he had fired several rounds from his automatic pistol and one round from his magnum. Again, the shots missed or bounced harmlessly off his armor, and Shadow had gone backwards and veered off to dive behind cover again by the time Robotnik could fire his first round. Robotnik had caught sight of something, though, and he had to stop himself from laughing as he trundled his vehicle farther into the open. After firing the larger-caliber pistol, Shadow had a pattern of running backwards, and the doctor figured out why – the hedgehog was light enough that the gun's recoil poised a serious threat of knocking him off his feet.

Not content to let Shadow determine the pace of the battle, Robotnik pursued the hedgehog this time. His ATV wasn't exactly quiet, so he didn't expect the element of surprise – and he wasn't surprised that Shadow had circled around behind him and was firing at his back. Then again, Shadow hadn't noticed he had a moving rearview camera and attached rifle. Robotnik quickly put it to good use, and fired a few shots that just barely missed Shadow's thin frame before he dashed off again. "This cat and mouse is getting bothersome, Shadow," Robotnik called, making a quick U-turn to follow after him. "You're clearly outgunned." He turned a corner, and found a spent clip from Shadow's automatic pistol.

"You're right. I can't gain the advantage against you with just machines." Shadow appeared in front of Robotnik again, this time running at him and jumping forward. Robotnik saw that the jump would carry Shadow straight into him, and let his rifle do the talking. To his surprise, Shadow had one of his Chaos Emeralds in hand, and he quickly put it to use. "Chaos Control!" a red energy field formed in front of Shadow, and Robotnik could only watch as his bullets flowed smoothly around it, passing Shadow unharmed. This was not a trick he had seen before. Then he stopped firing, and Shadow quickly switched to a trick he had seen before – Sonic's homing attack. The hedgehog curled into a ball and suddenly launched himself forward in mid-air, slamming into Robotnik's chest.

The mechanic's chair spun wildly from the slightly off-center impact and spilled Robotnik unceremoniously out of his vehicle. Launched back into the air from the homing attack impact, Shadow pulled out his machine pistol and took a few shots. Robotnik raised his good arm to protect his face, gritting his teeth at the fresh pain in his collarbone from the fall. He cursed a bit, and when the bullets stopped, risked a glance.

Shadow had come to a light landing on the seat of his vehicle. "Looks like it's game over for you, Eggman." Robotnik's resolve hardened, and he pointed right at Shadow, launching a plasma blast from his gauntlet. Shadow had known something was coming, but the blast still grazed the spikes of fur on the back of his head, and one was lit ablaze. Giving a small shout of alarm, Shadow dashed off before Robotnik was able to fire another shot or draw a different weapon, and Robotnik couldn't help but smile as he climbed back into the chair, muttering things like "Ultimate Life Form my foot" and "Can't even learn from his mistakes." He heard Shadow 's staccato of rapid footsteps carrying him even further off. "Now for those helicopters."

As soon as Shadow had gotten some distance, he stopped to pat out the fire on his head. It worked, although he was left with a missing piece in one of his fur spikes and one of his gloves was further damaged. "I'm going to kill that damn egg!" he snarled, feeling at the back of his head. He didn't consider himself a vain person, but he did know exactly how much he hated being made to look ridiculous (something he, ironically, shared with Robotnik).

"Shadow, report in." This time it was Solidus at his communicator. Shadow grabbed it and flipped it open. Solidus didn't wait for him to speak. "Good, you're there. The Bride has made it to the harbor. Don't let her escape with Smoker's ship or the submarine. And don't let her get to any of the helicopters in the hangar. I don't know if she knows how to fly, but it's not a chance I'm taking."

"Kinda busy here," Shadow grumbled. "I'm facing Robotnik in the hangar now."

"That's perfect," Solidus interrupted. "I won't lie to you, Shadow, we're shorthanded all of the sudden, and we need somebody to be in two places at once. You're the only man fast enough for the job. Just keep them away from the copters and ships."

Shadow was already headed for the harbor. "What about Sakyo's jet?"

Solidus's voice was cold. "It's no concern of mine. Sakyo's dead to me, and to the rest of BORED as well." He cut off radio contact.

Grumbling, Shadow ran along the harbor, looking for the Bride. It didn't take long to hear the shouting from Smoker's ship, and Shadow jumped up onto it.

"I'm going to ask again," the Bride said. For the first time in months, she had drawn a real sword in battle. And it felt good. She was holding the sword white-knuckled, her scarred face contorted into a grimace that she hoped was still as intimidating as it always had been. "It's nothing personal, but I have to get back to B.B."

The men, who claimed to be Marines from the 'World Government' (what was she, five?) had drawn swords on her, but the first slash had left many of them with shallow cuts and all of them keeping their distance. Others had gone below deck, presumably to fetch guns, so she was getting ready to attack. "Look, lady, we don't know what a B.B. is, " one man said, "but assaulting soldiers is against international law, so drop your weapon!"

"Wrong answer," the assassin said. She dashed forward, but a black wind seemed to roll past, whisking the soldier out of the path of her sword. She turned and saw that he had been dropped off farther down the deck of the ship by what looked like an angry, miniaturized version of one of the Mickey Mouse animal mascots from Disney land.

"Let me handle this one," he said. By chance, the Bride's entire experience on Grand Cross Isle so far had been with other humans, so she had never seen anything even vaguely like Shadow. She searched her entire catalogue of reactions to stimuli and came up blank, so she merely stared open-mouthed at Shadow, waiting for further mental input. "Why are you staring?" he asked, annoyed. "Is it because of the burnt fur?" His gloved hand brushed one of the… spikes on the back of his head.

Shaking her head clear, the Bride noticed that the rest of the Marines were backing off, clearing space for her and the creature to fight on the ship's main deck. The Bride was not a slow thinker, and she quickly summed up what she knew about this creature – first, the other Marines took orders from him or at least deferred to him in one-on-one fights, and second, he was capable of moving almost too fast to be seen. She dashed forward and took a quick, relatively safe swing at his chest.

The creature easily dodged backwards, pulling a white cylinder from its belt. "Not very friendly, are you? That's okay, I already know what I need. I've read the files, Miss Kiddo. If you do feel like diplomacy, my name is Shadow the Hedgehog. Otherwise…" the end of the cylinder slid out on an extending antenna for over a meter before a laser blade flared to life between the end and the handle. The Bride generally got the impression of a primitive version of the sword that Joruus had used. It was the nearly the length of the Bride's own sword, and looked a bit large for the creature wielding it.

"Unless you want to tell me where my seat is on the next flight off this godforsaken island, we have nothing to talk about." The Bride punctuated this statement by charging forward again. Shadow slashed, but although it was fast, it was also clumsy and telegraphed; the Bride rolled underneath and nearly took his legs off at the knees, but he leaped into the air. Shadow slashed downward at her, and she blocked instinctively; luckily, the blade held against whatever it was that the laser blade was made of. Instead, he kicked off of her blade and backflipped, landing on an upper deck of the ship.

The Bride pulled out a pistol, not about to let the hedgehog control the range of the fight. Shadow immediately jumped again and curled into a spiked ball in midair, then came rushing towards her. With almost superhuman speed, she brought up her blade to block. The impact knocked her flat on her back. Shadow was thrown straight up, and she saw that he had a nasty, if shallow, wound on his back. However, he dropped right back down with his blade extending again and reversed it again, aiming the spiked tip towards her heart. She blocked with her sword again, and he fell sideways off of her, running a few steps to the main mast.

The hedgehog surprised her yet again by running straight up the mast at speeds that no human would ever even approach unassisted. Grateful that Harry's old gun was still in her off-hand, she took a few shots at him. Shadow was forced to jump off the side of the mast, and the force of his jump carried him entirely off the boat and onto the harbor at the ground. His path was much slower and easier to track in the air, and the Bride took a shot before he hit the ground. "Chaos Control!" he yelled as she was aiming, and he flickered sideways several feet, dodging the bullet by a wide margin.

The Bride was becoming frustrated. Shadow was supernaturally fast, hard to track, and well-armed; she could handle that. However, all the impossible shit was becoming old very quickly. Even Pai Mei didn't do this kind of crap during training. When he pulled out a machine pistol, she couldn't help herself. "Let me guess – it shoots magic."

"It shoots BULLETS," Shadow replied. Then he pulled a gem off the bandolier on his chest. A huge blue emerald. It looked like it would put the Hope Fucking Diamond to shame. "This shoots magic, or close enough. Do you want me to hit you with both so you can compare?"

Setting her jaw, the Bride pulled out Harry's gun. She preferred swords, but she was no stranger to guns, and it took only a second to line up a shot right between the creature's eyes. However, that was time enough for him to run about thirty paces to one side, so the shot was rendered moot. He extended his gem and fired back – "Chaos Spear!" A large arrow of red energy shot from it and flew in a slightly curved arc towards the Bride. She dove to the deck to dodge it, obscuring herself from view behind the wooden railing of the ship.

She crawled down several feet, hoping to throw off his focus and aim when she popped back up into visibility, but a boot stomped down in her way. It was one of those weird fake marines, and he was pointing a rifle at her. "Stand down, little missy," he said with a sneer. She noticed her gun was already pointing at his ankle, so she just shot him in the leg before she could react. He dropped with a yell, and she saw more of the soldiers coming her way. She pointed her gun at the fallen man's chin, and that got them to hesitate. A desperate idea sparked in her head.

Hooking her sword arm under the wounded soldier, she hauled him into a standing position, keeping her gun at his head. "I have a hostage!" she yelled. She may have been the former Black Fucking Mamba, but she didn't want a shipful of soldiers on one side and Shadow the Weird Thing on the other. She pressed her back up against the side of the ship's cabin so that neither side would be able to exploit it. "Nobody move." There was only one problem with this strategy…

"She's not going anywhere," Shadow observed. He was right. There was no way she could get any way off the ship without repeatedly exposing her back, and she doubted she get these guys to just sail out of here and keep a hostage the entire time it took to get to an island with a city. "You don't have to let her kill the hostage, but keep her from leaving. I have to go deal with… Robotnik…"

His voice faltered at the sound of an approaching helicopter. The Bride peeked over the railing, and saw a heavily modified ATV being driven in Shadow's direction. Now, the Bride thought that she would never see a stranger-looking man than the Joker, but the driver of this ATV blew all competition out of the water. He (it?) was a great mountain of a man with some muscle well-hidden under a generous amount of flab, which was in turn well hidden under a suit of outlandish, grey-green armor. One arm appeared to be made of steel, and there were steel caps over his ears. Even his head, bald except for an enormous mustache, was mountain-shaped. His eyes were glowing red with black sclera, which would've been startling to her one survival tournament ago.

The man was also being chased by a helicopter, which was spraying a belly-mounted flamethrower at him. The various rifles and spikes on his vehicle were impressive, but inadequate for what he had to deal with. He drove right at Shadow, shouting bloody murder over the sound of the chopper, and the hedgehog easily dodged. Desperately swerving to avoid the flames as the chopper caught up with him, he narrowly managed to avoid plowing into the water at the edge of the pier.

He then turned and fired a red flash out of his gauntlet. This slammed into the side of the gunship's chassis as it was turning and left a nasty scorch mark. There didn't seem to be any serious damage, but it seemed to intimidate the pilot, because the helicopter instead flew off into what looked like the flooded cave network the wooden ship had come in through. Panting, the strange man in the ATV straightened up and said, "A temporary setback at best. I'll just commandeer another."

"Having fun with the copter pilots, Eggman?" Shadow drawled. His face contorting like he had suffered a rather nasty stroke, 'Eggman' took hold of one of the controls on his ATV and fired a spray of bullets out of the rear-mounted rifle at Shadow, sending him sprinting for cover. The Bride narrowed her eyes. Clearly, this 'Eggman' was no friend of the staff, despite having a rather singular vehicle. However, he might be too much of a threat to be allowed to live. In the meantime, as long as Shadow was kept busy, the battle equation changed for her.

She slammed her hostage's head into the cabin's outer wall and allowed him to slump to the floor, unconscious. Jarred back to an alert after the lull in combat and watching others fight, there was a second where the marines were still readying their weapons, and she took that second to charge into the middle of them. Just the soldiers, with no Enforcer and mostly swordsmen? She liked those odds.

"Still touchy about that name? Maybe you would prefer I call you something else? Egg… nog?" Shadow peeked around the corner of his crate and had to dodge right back around as bullets were sprayed at him. Robotnik had turned his ATV to face him. "Egg… salad? No, you're too fat." Shadow could actually hear Eggman's teeth grinding. The man had an inordinately high IQ, and Shadow knew his best bet to get him to slip up was to get him angry. He had learned the man's buttons the hard way. "If you've betrayed anybody lately, I can call you Eggs Benedict."

A home-brewed grenade flew lazily over Shadow's cover and landed in front of him. About the time of its first bounce, bullets began flying by on each side of Shadow's cover. He had to give the mad scientist an 'A' for effort, but… "CHAOS CONTROL!" He came out of the teleport above and in front of Robotnik's ATV and dropped toward it, drawing Travis's beam katana and activating it. For an instant, Shadow considered doing a one-liner based on 'scrambled egg', but settled for a battle cry.

Robotnik looked up and smiled a… well, with his face, all his smiles were unnerving. Then he pulled out a laser blade of his own and blocked Shadow's strike – a more advanced blade, in fact, more like what Shadow had seen from Joruus than Travis. Shadow was sure he hadn't had that last time. "Nice of you to drop in," he said venomously, and Shadow decided that maybe he just should've kept his mouth shut entirely. Shadow's feet hit the hood of the vehicle, and Robotnik pulled out a pistol with a noticeable grunt of pain. Was his right arm injured? That was… exploitable.

At any rate, Shadow jumped off to the side of the vehicle, not eager to be shot at point-blank. Robotnik fired anyway, wincing at the recoil. It grazed Shadow's side, and he gritted his teeth, clutching the shallow wound. "It's downright disrespectful of me to call me that," Robotnik snapped. "How would you like it if I started calling you Sonic?"

Shadow's eyes narrowed. "Not very much." Robotnik began turning his cart around, but he was out in the open now, and within two seconds, Shadow had circled him nearly entirely to get to Robotnik's right arm. He swung in with the beam katana, and Robotnik was fast enough to block it, so Shadow used his free hand to chop at Robotnik's upper arm. The result was a howl of pain and a burst of strength in Robotnik's sword arm that pushed Shadow back and nearly off his feet. Experimenting, Shadow took a tight 540 around the ATV and successfully got Robotnik to lose track of him before coming in on the other side and taking a punch at THAT upper arm, to see if he could disarm Robotnik of the sword.

He came away with a bruised knuckle. Robotnik's arm on that side was entirely robotic. "Who are you?" Shadow asked, backing off. Robotnik looked like he was about to answer proudly, but then his ATV exploded.

The marines were pretty well-trained. The Bride had only taken down four or five when one managed to jam a gun barrel into her back. Not only had he snuck up on her, he had somehow done it with a bazooka. "Stop or I'll fire!" he commanded. The Bride stopped in mid-lopping-a-man's-arm-off. "Pull it out without hurting him further, and then drop your sword." She complied with the first part, and then stopped.

"Wait…" she smiled. "You can't fire that thing. You'll kill yourself and the man in front of me as well as me." She thought this would stop him (these guys seemed pretty aware of human life), but then he laughed. "What's so funny?" she asked coldly.

"I won't die," he said confidently. "My shipmate and I… we're wearing armored boots! We're in no danger!" The man who she had just halfway taken an arm off of, who was backing off slowly, helpfully raised one of his boots for an example. There was indeed armor plating on it. The Bride found she had no argument against this logic, and yielded him the point.

Then he made a fatal mistake. As he turned to call for a pair of handcuffs, he let his aim slip. The Bride turned and sliced his hand clean off, then bent down and quickly grabbed the rocket launcher. All the other marines backed off, except for the man she had just taken the weapon from, who merely screamed incoherently at her and pointed at his stump with his remaining hand. She shoved him out of the way with the flat of her blade and turned the weapon toward the fight between 'Eggman' and Shadow.

Shadow was rapidly circling around his opponent, and they both had those laser blades. She reasoned that she would probably need to eliminate both of them, and 'Eggman' would require a direct hit from the rocket, while Shadow could conceivably be seriously injured or at least stunned by the concussive force. With that in mind, she fired at the ATV.

One thing the Bride had never done before was fire a bazooka or other type of rocket launcher. She was expecting a massive recoil. Instead, she was treated to the screams of a few marines behind her as they were roasted by the backblast. The smell, and the sound of their screams sickened her, but she forced herself not to look, and to let the explosion from the rocket drown out the shouts for a medic. "It's for B.B.," she reminded herself, diving off the ship's railing. In the water, she briefly saw Shadow sinking helplessly past her before she turned back to the surface and breached, climbing up onto the carved granite of the harbor.

The ATV was burning wreckage… and its owner was sitting in its seat, floating a good thirty feet above the wreckage. He was putting away his beam sword and pistol, and picking up the rifle in his lap. There was also a shield resting on a hook on the seat's side. The seat was floating. The Bride was having trouble getting over that part. And the man in it looked upset. "I worked for a good long time on that vehicle," he said. "Days, in fact. And how long did it take you to destroy it? Maybe three seconds to steal a big weapon? Another two to make a spur-of-the-moment choice to attack me unprovoked? I confess, madam, that I had no quarrel with you, but you've made a terribly strong case that I should shoot you right now. Do you have a counterargument?"

The Bride was painfully aware that she had lost Harry's pistol onboard the ship at some point. Swallowing, she began, "Eggman, right? If you know how to fly those helicopters, I could help you get to one of them, and you could fly us-" it wasn't working. Eggman had turned rather purple in the face. "Did I say something wrong?"

"It is Doctor Robotnik of the House of Ivo, and you have just made up my mind!" Robotnik opened fire, sending an entire clip of rounds spiraling down in the Bride's direction. She managed to get behind one of the harbor's myriad crates (this one marked 'BEEF JERKY', the one above it perplexingly marked 'STACK ME'), but not before taking bullets to the left shoulder, thigh, and calf. All but immobilized by the pain, she waited with tears in her eyes for him to come after her. She had no way of dealing with an airborne opponent, let alone one with an assault rifle. The outcome was looking pretty poor for her. I should've taken my chances with the marines, she thought.

Shadow could run at the speed of sound, leap six times his height from a standing position, was immune to aging, and with enough Chaos power, could teleport, alter the flow of time and space, create destructive dimensional rifts, control raw Chaos energy, or temporarily become a transcendent being with the power to fly and move at the speed of light. He could not, however, swim.

I'm drowning! was the first thought that came into his head. Incidentally, it was also the fourth and sixth thoughts. The second thought was Why did the ATV blow up?, the third thought was, This sucks so much, the fifth thought was, Hey, that was the Bride!, and the seventh was, this wound on my side stings a lot. After that, he managed to think something useful. What am I doing? I'm Shadow the Hedgehog. Does it matter if I can't swim? I'm the Ultimate Life Form! I'm not about to be defeated by water, of all things! "CHAOS CONTROL!" he yelled, letting out most of his remaining air.

Shadow, along with several gallons of seawater, was displaced onto the deck of Smoker's battleship. He looked around. Smoker's men had suffered considerably in his short absence. A few were dead, several more were injured, even mutilated. "You attacked her," he said flatly.

"She dropped the hostage," one of the unwounded men replied. He was bandaging up another, severely burned man. Shadow took off his gloves, emptying out the seawater, and then decided to leave them off. They were pretty badly burnt and bloodstained now anyway. "Sir? The other Contestant you were fighting seems to have the situation under control."

"What?" Shadow turned. Robotnik was on a floating chair – the chair from the ATV. He had apparently launched himself clear of the explosion with it. He was at least that much like the Eggman Shadow knew. However, he was using his floating chair to mercilessly hunt a woman down, which wasn't something he had ever known Eggman to do. …I should just let them battle it out. I can finish off the victor at my leisure. "What happened to Egg- to Robotnik's vehicle?"

"The fat guy? The woman took one of our rocket launchers and shot it. I'm surprised you're both all right, that was a big blast… and you're not even wearing metal shoes." Shadow gritted his teeth. "You alright, sir?" Shadow nodded, but then his communicator rang. He opened it, marveling that it still worked at all after being immersed.

"Shadow, why aren't you fighting Robotnik?" Sakyo pressed. "I got a call from one of the pilots that he almost took the vehicle."

"Solidus told me to go fight the Bride. Now they're fighting- hang on, I have another call." Shadow checked the screen. "It's Solidus."

"Patch him through, then. I need to know what he thinks he's doing." Shadow complied, and Solidus's growl came right through.

"What are you doing? I heard that the Bride killed a bunch of those Marines! What are we paying you for, Shadow?"

"What do you need the Marines for?" Sakyo asked. "Smoker's dead anyway."

"Sakyo? You idiot, Tashigi's no help if she learns we've let her Marines get hurt."

"Keeping all the escape routes open is more important! Shadow, get out there and kill Robotnik!"

"Those Marines are one of the escape routes! Shadow, I need you to kill the Bride!"

"Solidus, don't forget which of us is higher in BORED's hierarchy!"

"After this incident, there isn't going to BE a hierarchy, you damned, demon-consorting fool! I'll have you court-martialed for this!"

"Court-martialed? You demented old terrorist, we're not in –"

"SHUT UP!" Shadow yelled into the phone.

"Shadow…" Sakyo's voice was almost pleading. "Just kill them both. They're both threats to our safe evacuation if they're down in the harbor."

"I'll just wait for one to kill the other."

"Travis tried that," Solidus argued, "and he got himself killed when the two Contestants he was fighting allied." Actually, the opposite was true, although Shadow didn't know it – Travis's presence, rather than his absence, had spurred the two into an alliance. "Get back in that fight right now and ensure there are no loose ends. If you do and I get off this rock alive, I will help you track down another Chaos Emerald afterwards. You have my word."

"Done," Shadow said, ending the call. To be honest, he wanted to be the one to kill the Bride anyway – the rocket had left stinging shrapnel wounds all over his front, but nothing hurt more than his pride. He backed up a few steps, and took a running start off the ship.

The Bride set her jaw as the shadow of Robotnik's chair eclipsed her kneeling form. She got to her feet, although even with her weight on her good leg, she was in agony. "Well, now, my dear. It's rather unfortunate it had to end this way," Robotnik said with a confident smile. "Are you enjoying the shade from my seat of power?"

"It would have to be a pretty powerful seat to hold you in the air," the Bride said with a grim smile.

"Petty insults…" Robotnik's smile vanished, and he slammed a new clip decisively into his rifle. "A sad choice of last words."

The Bride said nothing, but threw her sword, aiming for Robotnik's exposed head. He hastily elbowed the joystick on his chair that controlled it, and it drifted backwards, evading the sword easily. "Silly woman, throwing your sword never works."

The Bride was hit with a strong flash of nostalgia, hearing her old favorite exchange with Cottonmouth in her head ("Silly rabbit…" "…Trix are for kids."), but she shrugged it off and drew the knife at her side, throwing that too. Robotnik hadn't seen it before, so he was caught off-guard and dodged forward instead of back. The knife embedded itself in the mechanism keeping the chair afloat, which began to click rhythmically and spark.

"What? No!" The chair veered dangerously, and although Robotnik slammed the joystick in the other direction, he was unable to stop it entirely from listing to the left. "It was working so well! Again you've foiled my vehicle!" he took a shot at her, but as he began firing there was a loud pop from under the seat and it began spinning him counterclockwise, causing the shots to go wide. "No!"

The Bride drew Joruus's light saber and inspected it. Had the water damaged it? She extended the beam and took a few practice swings. No, it seemed to function well enough, although the balance was very hard to get used to. Still, it wouldn't be too much trouble to finish Robotnik once he dropped from the sky… which would hopefully be soon. He seemed physically strong, but not particularly skilled, and he was almost certainly slow-moving. "Are you going to come down on your own or wait for that thing to drop you?"

"I'll shoot you first, and then come down!" Robotnik fired at her on his next spin around, forcing her to fall back under cover. She winced, glancing at the bullet holes in the stone around her. She checked her own wounds, regretting that she hadn't used the knife to dig the bullets out, but she needn't have bothered; the high-powered rifle had managed to miss the bone on all three shots and had torn clean through her. How lovely. She was content to ride out the dangerous spinning phase of the battle behind cover, but hearing Robotnik bellow "You again?" piqued her curiosity, and she peeked out from behind cover.

Shadow had arrived, standing on top of another stack of crates. "Robotnik… you look ridiculous. Like a spinning egg." Robotnik's eyelid, which was facing the Bride when Shadow finished his sentence, twitched rather nastily. "I hope you're sick of that ride, because you're coming down!" He drew his guns and pointed his magnum at the chair's sensitive undercarriage. Click. "Misfire?" The Bride remembered that Shadow had been thrown in the water, apparently at the same time as her. He tried the other gun, with no better results. "DAMmit!" he threw the guns aside and drew two of his Emeralds. "Chaos Lance!" A larger, faster version of the 'Chaos Spear' he had thrown at the Bride earlier shot out from the gems. Robotnik slammed on the abused joystick, but the blast still grazed his chair, shearing off whole plates of steel. The emperor's impromptu thrown could take no more; it coughed and dropped out of the air, unceremoniously spilling Robotnik onto the ground.

Shadow began to walk towards the doctor, pocketing the Emeralds in favor of Travis's Tsubaki beam katana. It didn't start. Growling, Shadow gave it a few good shakes, and it finally started. For once, he took his time. This wasn't the Robotnik he knew, but it was close enough. Whenever he was tempted to just put Eggman out of his misery, he would be able to look back at this moment and think, but wait. I already have.

When Robotnik got to his feet, it was surprisingly fast. The enormous man actually rolled back onto his left shoulder and LEAPT to his feet, landing heavily on his armored boots. He was grimacing very widely, showing that one of his teeth had been knocked out on impact. "I really hate hedgehogs," he said quietly, and opened fire one-handed with his assault rifle. The wider spray of bullets from firing one-handed actually served him well, as one of the outlying bullets struck Shadow in the side and buried itself in his pelvis as he ran out of the way. Screaming and clutching his side, Shadow fell as he ran, but turned it into a roll and managed to spin-dash behind cover. Robotnik fired futilely after him until the clip ran out, then discarded the rifle in evident disgust. "Is this how the Ultimate Life Form behaves?" he shouted after the hedgehog.

That did it. "Chaos Control." Shadow appeared in front of Robotnik, blade out, other hand clutching his side and trying to staunch the flow of blood. "Let's get this over with."

"I couldn't agree more." Robotnik drew his light saber and slashed at Shadow, who easily evaded. He stepped in for a counter, but the way he was predicting made his attacks predictable, and Robotnik easily blocked. They clashed blades several times before Robotnik worked up the courage to try and push Shadow off balance with his. It worked, staggering the hedgehog, but he raised his other arm and backhanded Robotnik before he could press his advantage. Shadow's hand came back bloody, and it registered to him that he had slashed Robotnik with his claws. "Little savage," Robotnik growled, walloping him with the saber. The blocked blow put pressure on Shadow's damaged pelvis, and he was quickly spilled to the ground. Robotnik slashed down at him, but Shadow tucked into a backwards roll and got clear, stabbing forward as he got up.

The move served to stop Robotnik's charge preemptively, but instead the doctor shot at him with the plasma blaster in his gauntlets, forcing Shadow to dodge and fall over again. Painfully aware of what all the sudden movements were doing to his wound, Shadow came up on his good knee and brought up a Chaos Emerald. "Chaos Rift!" The move opened a strange-looking tear between the two fighters, sucking in the next plasma bolt… and judging by the wind flowing into it, threatening to suck in anything else. Robotnik took a cautious step back. "Come any closer and you'll get to experience the inside of a quantum singularity, doctor," Shadow threatened.

"Impressive… and what a waste to use it merely as a shield. How long can you keep it up?" Robotnik asked. Shadow hoped the man couldn't see his expression behind the singularity… he was on the nose as usual. Still, it was only a distraction… digging his claws in, Shadow grimaced and pulled the bullet out. Now what? I'm going to be too drained for another Chaos Spear… I'll have to just outspeed the fat freak. He didn't know the Bride would save him the trouble.

The Bride saw her opening and she took it. Robotnik was entirely engrossed with Shadow's latest weird power, sucked in (metaphorically) through a combination of scientific curiosity and anticipation for it to drop. She dashed towards him, light saber ready. However, the man had to be given credit for good hearing, because she hadn't been all that loud, but he spun to face her. Their sabers clashed, making strange sounds as they sparked against each other. However, due to his injury, there was no question whose off-hand was quicker. He was effectively helpless to stop the Bride as she reached up and snatched his right eye out of the socket.

She wasn't expecting, however, the man's eye to come out bloodlessly, or with bare wires trailing behind it, or with a shower of sparks that caused her to flinch back and dropped the eye. It was sucked into the rift and forgotten. "A robot?" she asked. "Really?!" Robotnik's eye socket was coated with what looked like well-oiled black plastic.

"My eye!" he shouted rather redundantly. "Was that really necessary?" He forced her back with a swing of his sword, and shot at her with the gauntlet. She felt the plasma singe her cheek as it flew past, and determined not to let him get another shot with it. As he charged forward for another swing, she parried it to the side (he was an amateur at swordplay, no mistaking it) and slammed the back of the saber into the lens of the blaster on his left arm.

Again, the results were not entirely desirable. The focus crystal cracked, and when Robotnik tried firing it again in response, a constant stream of deep red flame burst from his arm instead. The Bride jumped back, but not before it lit her hair on fire, forcing her to power down her lightsaber and roll on the ground to extinguish the flames. She was no sooner extinguished than Robotnik turned the flames on her in earnest, forcing her back. "That could've gone better."

Once Robotnik was good and distracted, of course, Shadow dispelled the rift and came charging forward with laser blade ready to decapitate the doctor. Robotnik didn't hear him this time over the roar of the rushing flames; instead, he felt the vacuum of the void stop and saw it stop subtly altering the direction of the flames. "Shadow!" He turned around, spraying the flames at his waist level; Shadow was unable to stop before getting a face full of red flames. Screaming, he clutched at his face, rolled around on the ground (leaving a smeared trail of blood from his side), and eventually came to a stop, his breathing shallow.

Robotnik shook his arm experimentally, but the flames still didn't stop. He kicked Shadow once for good measure, and when he didn't get up, laughed. "That's one down." He turned and swept the flames behind him at face height, apparently knowing the Bride would charge at him. Of course, she was ready, too, this time. She rolled under the flames and stabbed her light saber into his left upper arm. Again, she struck robotics; his left hand dropped the saber with a clatter, and its blade retracted, but he managed to bring up the elbow and catch her in the stomach with the steam, lighting her jumpsuit aflame. Shouting in surprise, she ran backwards, abandoning her saber, and jumped into the water to put the flames out.

She breached almost immediately, and saw that the flames had finally died out on Robotnik's gauntlet blaster. He began to chuckle again, starting towards her. "You've caused me more trouble than Shadow could have hoped to. It'll take me forever to get a ship out of here with my arms like this. What's your name, woman?"

The Bride blinked. She never gave her own name when she could avoid it, but Robotnik seemed to be something less than a fan of nicknames, and besides… it felt like he earned it. "It's Beatrix Kiddo."

Robotnik nodded. "Another name for the history books," he said, to himself as much as her.

"Sorry about the tactics. I prefer an honorable duel, but I didn't have time to find out if you'd agree to one." He broke eye contact with her, and she took the opportunity to look around for a way out. She saw the sword she had thrown at him earlier, sitting near the edge of the water. It would help, but he still had a pistol at his side. It would be a long shot.

Robotnik drew the pistol as if reading her mind, wincing as he held it in his left hand. "No, I don't think I would have. Not unless you challenged me to a duel of giant robots, possibly, and that's just not feasible around here. I'm afraid this is goodbye, Miss Kiddo."

"Chaos."

Shadow's face was no longer on fire, but it still felt that way. He came out of his daze, but he was still woozy, and it wasn't improving with time. Blood loss must be getting to me. He weakly grabbed one of the Emeralds from his bandolier and just held it, enjoying the feeling of Chaos energy flowing steadily into his body. Then he looked into the multifaceted red gem and even that simple joy was shattered. His face was horribly burned from the flames, mostly bald, with skin missing everywhere. He could see the exposed muscles moving as his expression changed to horror… and then to rage. That sick clone of Eggman was responsible for this. He'd bear these scars forever. Thinking about it fueled Shadow's rage… and that gave him a dark new idea for how to use his powers. "I'm afraid this is goodbye," he heard Robotnik say, and that was the breaking point.

"Chaos,"he intoned, holding the Emerald high as he rolled over to aim his other hand at Robotnik. A red force field, like the ones he had used to protect himself from bullets, had formed over the doctor's head. Robotnik stopped what he was doing and raised a half-functional robot arm to claw at the bubble, but to no effect. His face was quickly turning as red as his remaining eye. Shadow got slowly to his feet, keeping his free hand trained on Robotnik. Once he was up, he clenched his hand into a fist. "Control." Robotnik's head burst like an overripe watermelon as the force field dissipated, spilling all over his shoulders. "Sweet dreams, Eggman," Shadow said, and spat on the corpse.

There was a splash, and Shadow looked up to see the Bride grabbing a sword and starting cautiously towards him. Shadow raised his Emerald, but to no effect – he was completely tapped out, from all three of the gems. Putting it away, he drew the Tsubaki and charged towards her – he would have to beat her on speed and speed alone… or hope that she passed out from blood loss first.

Despite the fact that he came at her at well over a hundred miles per hour (he didn't want to push himself past two or three hundred with the bullet wound), she blocked successfully, windmilling back as his momentum pushed her back several paces. He was on her again almost instantly, but she managed to block each strike, no matter how fast it came. "Why can't I hit you?!" Shadow said through gritted teeth, punctuating each word with a strike of his weapon.

"I don't make people's heads explode with gems. Here's what I do." She parried his next strike, despite the fact that he had gotten behind her in the time it takes most people to blink, and nearly took his arm off with her counter. "I can say, with no exaggeration, that I am the deadliest woman alive with a sword."

"Funny…" Shadow was forced back, out of the range of her blade. "That's what it said in your profile. First line of 'Bio'. But I'm in no mood for that 'hard work' bullcrap." He took an especially impressive overhead swing at her… which she blocked expertly. To add potential injury to perceived insult, the beam flickered out on his katana. "Oh, come on!" Thinking quickly, Shadow grabbed her sword by the pommel and rammed it a few inches into the ground, then punched her in the face. "How are you in hand-to-hand?"

She caught the second punch, which was traveling somewhat faster than a major-league pitch. "Pretty good. To be honest, I do know one fancy trick." Shadow tried to jump back, but to no avail. "It's called the

Five

Point

Palm

Exploding

Heart

Technique."

Then she slammed him in the chest with an open palm one and Shadow instantly knew something was very, fundamentally wrong. He struggled to get out of her grip two but it was like being caught in an iron vice and she had no trouble landing another hit on him. For Shadow, each blow seemed like an eternity three but even HIS body wasn't responding fast enough. A desperate idea occurred to him and he reached over with his free hand to grab the handle four of her forgotten sword. Yanking it out of the ground, he swung it as fast as he could-

And there was a wet noise similar to the sound of pulling one's shoe out of quicksand, and the Bride's grip came loose. Shadow fell flat on his back and the fifth palm strike passed just over him. The Bride stood still as a statue, bent over from the missed palm strike. "Shadow…" she whispered. "Could you do me a favor?"

"…Yeah?" Shadow asked. The adrenaline rush was taking its toll, and he couldn't muster up the strength to move at all. It felt like his body was made of lead.

"I have a daughter… B.B.… get off this island, and, make sure she's safe, all right?" The Bride didn't wait for Shadow's consent before toppling over forwards, her head sliding off her shoulders to roll away. The headless body collapsed onto Shadow, pinning him down. Weakly, Shadow grabbed his communicator and raised it to his face. Everything was starting to go blurry, and when he mumbled out the distress call, his own voice echoed in his head. Unable to cling to consciousness any longer, Shadow passed out, replacing the morbid reality of his situation with the memory of Maria's kind words and touch…

End of Chapter

Notes: Robotnik's various incarnations can be pretty confusing, so I went to the Sonic wikia and went by the reference of Robotnik Prime (Archie Comics). He does indeed have bionic eyes, ears, and left arm. I estimated this was the one Clement's been using because he wears armor, has the red eyes, and is the version who is actually Snively's uncle (Snively's mentioned in Clement's fight with Ban). He also has grey-green armor instead of red because he used Ginger's carapace to repair it. I'm pretty sure everything I had him use is canon with Clement's story, although I made up the joystick because it wasn't mentioned how he controlled the chair form of the vehicle. Maybe Mystique's base had an Atari? XD He also has a broken collarbone from fighting Ban, so I had him favor his left arm and (when he had to use the right) do things with it that wouldn't require much shoulder movement.

The Bride was easier, since I've seen both Kill Bills. Great character, really. I know her death is extremely cheesy (the extremely long wait for the head to fall off), but it felt fitting for the protagonist of that movie. Hence some of the stylistic touches for the Five Point Palm Exploding Heart Technique, which is so legendary it (for example) merits a paragraph for each word in its title.

Shadow, being an antihero but also kind of a nice guy here, needed a fatal flaw. Now, I'm sure none of us want it to be brooding… I initially considered addiction to the Chaos energy, but that needs more buildup. So I went with good old fashioned pride and arrogance. This is a guy who will remind you that is epitaph is Ultimate Life Form. He has a big ego. Check out how many times in this chapter he does something stupid or dark because of his pride. Or take my word for it – its most of them. So that's why burning his face will cause him to invent Chaos Your Head Asplode.

As for what happened to get the Bride on the boat or Robotnik's failed attempt to score a helicopter in the three minutes Shadow was gone for… your guess is as good as mine.

Robotnik got to appear first, but the Bride gets far more POV time. This was mostly subconscious on my part.