Disclaimer: Sonic and co. © Sega

Anubis Shenrus and Egglings © Blank the Nobody

Chapter Eighteen

Winds of Change: Part Two

27 Days and 7 Hours before Black Egg Armageddon

Everything and everyone was changing all around me. My friends, the people, the city and worst of all, my enemy.

The air was doused with the smell of foul blood while the sounds of battle raged on the streets below. A loud crash filled the air suddenly, making a flock of birds fly off of their perches in pure terror. As the birds flew away, a small plume of gray smoke rose into the air along with the new smell of gasoline. There was another crash, then an enraged yell as a large brawny doctor was slammed against a large tank filled with the flammable liquid.

The doctor stood in the middle of a gas station, not caring that the place might explode at any given moment. Under him, a large pool of gasoline, making the air smell horrible as the scent of gas mixed in with the smell of blood. He stared at the hedgehog in front of him, a large psychotic smile on his face like before. So far he was enjoying his battle with Shadow and the fact that he was irritating the hedgehog while fighting made everything worthwhile.

Shadow could see the maniacal smirk on the doctor's face and he wanted to wipe it off like some smudge on a window. In order to do that, the hedgehog raised his hand at the doctor, palm facing his brawny body as small sparks of energy started to flicker from finger to finger. He concentrated his power and anger into the palm of his hand, making his hand glow brighter and brighter every second.

"Chaos . . ." he began as he continued to gather more and more energy.

Eggman braced himself for the attack that was soon to come. He had survived the attack once before, but with the gasoline on the ground around him as a new variable, he wanted to know how his body would fare against the Chaos Empowered attack with gasoline and fire. The doctor watched as the hedgehog charged his attack, he wasn't going to disrupt Shadow, he wanted to test Shadow while at the same time, scaring him with his strength.

"Lance!"

A large yellow bolt of immense power was sent hurdling toward Eggman. The attack smashed into the doctor's body, igniting the gas under him and destroying the large tank of gas behind him, creating a large fiery explosion that engulfed Ivo completely. Shadow watched as the flames danced around in front of him, the explosion barely touching him. The hedgehog's face felt warm as waves of heat radiated from the giant inferno in front of him. He searched through the flames, trying to find any hints remains of Eggman.

"Well, I admit that hurt, but we all know that you can do better then that." said a familiar voice from within the fire.

Shadow could sense a sudden spike in energy and the hedgehog jumped to the left as a large fist came barreling out of the flames. The Black Blur landed on his feet, as the doctor came to a halt, small flames still burning some patches of skin before dying out. The hedgehog stared at the doctor's burnt body and smoking body, wondering how the man had survived. Eggman's skin had large patches of burnt, black skin that leaked blood profusely. A large burn that covered half of Eggman's face, revealing all of the muscle tissue and bloodstreams under what used to be flesh and yet his mustache and glasses remained intact.

"Lighting gasoline!? Creative yes, but something I've never seen, no! Try something other then some cheap movie stunt." taunted the doctor as his flesh started to heal rapidly.

Shadow didn't respond and instead scoffed at Eggman's remark. He didn't care if his attacks were some action movie cliché, all he cared about was winning. The hedgehog watched as all of Eggman's burns healed slowly. Every black burn wound lightened up and turned back into normal skin; and his blood was absorbed back into his body. His injuries were gone within seconds and he looked like a new man. The doctor then cracked his knuckles, as he prepared to retaliate.

"Let's end this." said Shadow coldly, before disappearing from his spot with a blur of black streaks.

After watching the hedgehog vanish suddenly, the doctor chuckled slightly. "Fine, but there's one thing," he said before swinging around to face his left side. As if on cue, Shadow appeared right in front of him, a serious look on his face, but after seeing Eggman staring directly at him, the seriousness was wiped off and replaced with a surprised one. "I can trace your movements now." He grinned before launching his large beefy fist forward.

Before Shadow could respond, the rock hard fist slammed into him. The weight pushing on Shadow's body was so hard that it felt like he was being hit by an incoming train, and the hedgehog could feel some of his ribs breaking from the impact. Small droplets of blood escaped Shadow's lips as he flew off of Eggman's fist sending him flying backwards. Seconds later, his body slammed into a strong brick wall. Blood was starting to leak out of the black hedgehog's mouth and trace down his chin as he looked with one eye at his strong opponent.

"What the hell is happening to him?" wondered Shadow as his limp body began to slide off of the wall.

Eggman wouldn't let Shadow get off that easy though. Only centimeters away from the ground, Eggman appeared in front of Shadow and pinned the hedgehog against the wall. Pain stung at Shadow's body as the broken ribs were jostled and moved around from within his body. Instead of holding his serious look, a pained expression took on the hedgehog's face instead. The pain that the doctor was infliction on the black blur made, the madman giggle with glee. After so long, he was finally able to make Shadow feel actual physical pain, instead of shaking his foundations with some coarse mind game or barely scratching him with a 'weak as paper' robot.

"Fighting with you gets boring at times you know that?" asked the doctor playfully. "No matter what I do you never say a single word." Eggman applied more pressure on the hedgehog's body, making Shadow scream in pain. "There we go! That's what I want to hear!" said the doctor joyously.

The brick wall behind Shadow was starting to crack under the intense weight being applied to it. Luckily for him though, he couldn't feel any more bones breaking and instead felt a strong numbness overtake his entire chest. Maybe his body was so damaged that pain no longer mattered anymore. And for the first time in his life, Shadow cared. His breathing was starting to get shorter and at a more rapid pace as he could feel death slowly take his body. In front of him he could see the doctor's evil grin staring right back at him and he wished he had the power to rip it right off his disgusting face.

Shadow's vision blurred into nothing but darkness and the only thing he could hear was the thumping of his own heart, as it started to gradually get slower and slower. After a couple of seconds in the darkness, there was nothing. There was no sound of his heart beating and no more pain, just Shadow floating along in the large, dark abyss with no more restrictions. He didn't like it at all. It wasn't because he knew he was alone, it was because he knew that he had been defeated by Eggman of all people. He sighed woefully as his body was carried by an invisible current within the darkness. After so long, he knew that the 'place filled with clouds and angels' would be the last place he would end up in.

But to his surprise, up ahead he saw a bright light. A shocked look swept across the hedgehog's face as he willed himself to float toward the light. As he started to get closer to the shimmering light, he could feel a wave of warmth cover his body. It was soothing and delightful and Shadow wanted to get there as fast as he could. At first he thought he was getting closer, but after a while he finally figured out that he wasn't moving at all.

"Shadow? Is that you?" asked a familiar female voice from the light.

The hedgehog stopped at the voice, recognizing it immediately. "Rouge?"

Suddenly a ghostly apparition of Rouge appeared in front of Shadow. The bat looked perfectly fine and amazingly surprised. She was transparent to some degree, but Shadow could definitely feel her presence from within the darkness. He stared at her, finding that she was definitely shocked at something, he just didn't know what it was.

"You're not . . . HELL NO! You can't be dead!" yelled Rouge as she grabbed Shadow by the shoulders and shaking him around violently.

Shadow was shaken around like some ragdoll by the frantic bat. He had no idea how to respond to the situation. At first, he thought he would be subjected to nothing more then a dark abyss, then Rouge comes along and changes everything. The black hedgehog got Rouge to let go of him and the Black Blur assumed his more serious stance. It could've been pure coincidence, but Shadow would take control of the situation somehow.

"Isn't it obvious? I'm dead." He said plainly.

Rouge laughed at the statement. "You can't die Shadow." said the bat as she continued to laugh.

She was right though. His story wasn't going to end on a low note, it would be too sudden if he were to die. Everyone knew that if there were to be some major disaster, either Sonic or Shadow would be the only ones left, because of their strength and experience. If for some reason the two were to call some truce, then there would also be a probability that they would both survive. After a while of hysterical laughing, Rouge finally calmed down and looked at Shadow, but the hedgehog could tell that she was still holding back more laughs.

"You have to help save the world, Shadow. You can't just sit back." she said trying to hold down her laughter.

"I can't though, Eggman's too strong" replied Shadow in an exhausted tone.

"Then you and Sonic will have to learn the same lesson." She said with a pout.

Her words confused Shadow. Sonic and Shadow were two entirely different people except for the fact that they're hedgehogs and they can run fast. Both of them had different morals and mental strengths and weaknesses. Where Sonic would be carefree and easygoing, Shadow would be hard-hitting and serious. At almost all times their personalities conflicted with each other, and they learned from each other. If they were to both learn the same thing, then that would mean that they would both be missing some large piece of information.

"What would that be?" asked Shadow, but deep inside his mind he knew that Rouge wouldn't tell him.

Rouge giggled at the question. "Now if I told you that, where would the fun be?" she asked jokingly. She then floated up close to Shadow and pushed him backwards. "Besides, even if I told you, then you wouldn't believe me." She said.

The ebony hedgehog floated backwards slowly, before noticing that he was being sucked into something. He looked behind him to see a large white portal, swirling with power. He didn't want to go, there was still information he needed to get from Rouge. Shadow fought the suction of the portal, trying to get back to Rouge.

"Wait!" he yelled trying to grab something that wasn't there.

"Tell that Knucklehead to give Eggy a good punch for me." she said, before blowing him a kiss.

Shadow was close to having his entire body sucked into the portal, but Rouge suddenly jerked upright, as if remembering something suddenly. The bat then grabbed Shadow's hand, keeping his face from being sucked into the portal.

"I almost forgot. Maria says 'hi.'"

Rouge then let go and before he knew it, Shadow was immersed in the portals white light and Rouge and Maria were out of sight. As he drifted backwards into the portal, his chest started to hurt and his breathing was starting to get shallower and shallower. He knew where he was going and wished that he didn't have to go back at all. His sight was then bathed in nothing but white as the sounds of battle filled his eardrums.

"Hey! Get off him!" yelled a familiar male voice.

Shadow's eyes sprung open to the sight of Eggman getting punched in face by an angry red echidna. The doctor released Shadow from his crushing pin and the hedgehog slid off of the cracked brick wall. Before falling to the ground, a speedy blue blur appeared under him and caught him gently.

"Gotcha." said the relieved Sonic.

Eggman fell to the ground but put a hand in front of him for support. The doctor then hauled himself onto his feet and stared at Shadow with the same psychotic smile. There was a hint of curiosity in the doctor's eyes and all three of them could tell. He walked forward, but Knuckles growled, making him stop.

"Shadow, I'm surprised. Your heart stopped, and yet for some magical reason, it started up again. What are you? Some fairytale reject?" he taunted before laughing.

Sonic looked at Shadow with a surprised look. It was obvious that the blue hero had never seen someone come back to life. Shadow on the other hand was just as surprised as he was. It actually wasn't that surprising though. Shadow could've probably named a couple more occasions when Sonic had suddenly come back from the grave, but Sonic couldn't recall any occasions where Shadow had been revived. In his mind, Shadow thought that seeing Rouge was a dream, he never actually thought he had actually died.

"You alright?" asked Sonic, as he could see the blood coming out of the edges of Shadow's mouth.

Shadow fought back the urge to yell in discomfort and simply said. "I'm fine."

Eggman could easily tell that Shadow was lying. The doctor knew how much damage he had caused internally to the dark hedgehog and he knew that he wouldn't last very long with the crushed internal organs. At any moment the burly Eggman could have easily teleported next to the injured Shadow and killed him, but he knew that it would be too boring and easy. He wanted a challenge and so far the only person he saw as a threat was Shadow. Sonic was getting close to the same level of power, but was still a bit far off and Knuckles was nothing more then an enraged oaf. But even with the facts, Eggman still wanted blood and he wanted it badly

"Well, Shadow, let's finished this." said the doctor wickedly before taking another step forward.

Knuckles got up, about to charge Eggman head on with all of his rage. But before the doctor could take another step forward he stopped and let out a pained yell. He got down on one knee as he tried to grab something on his back. Knuckles, Sonic and Shadow could see the broken glass canister that once held the doctor's strange black liquid. Shadow knew that he must've destroyed the ooze with his Chaos Lance, but he never would've thought that it would take such a serious toll on Eggman.

"Lucky you." he hissed as blood started to come out of his mouth. "A bit anticlimactic, but I've got to run." said the doctor before teleporting away using his last bits of strength.

The angry echidna got up, looking around for any signs of Eggman.

"Knuckles stop!" cried Sonic, still holding onto Shadow. "We need to get Shadow some help." He said, trying to be the good friend.

The black hedgehog got off of Sonic and tried to stand up straight. He didn't need help. He needed some time alone. Sonic tried to stop Shadow from leaving, but the hedgehog left in a blur of black and streaks. Sonic was about to follow after him, but he knew it would be impossible to convince him to come to a hospital after what had happened. The Blue Blur then sighed worriedly and looked at Knuckles. There was still more work to be done around the city, still more soldiers that needed support. Without exchanging another word, Sonic and Knuckles were off to go aid another squadron. As the two ran, Knuckles just had to say something.

"No rest for the weary, eh?"

Three Hours Later

Night crept by slowly and the moon illuminated the night with a shade of gray. The streets were covered with shadows and moonlight as the occasional burning building lit up with a shade of orange light. Below, the clinking and clattering of Egglings running through the shadows silently rose into the air. Along with the sounds of the night was a pained grunting and groaning as a certain black hedgehog pushed his broken ribs back into place.

Shadow sat down on the edge of the rooftop, watching the nighttime sky as he continued to push his bones back into place. It was a painful process, but it would have to suffice until he could steal some medical equipment from one of the closed down hospitals in the area. His white gloves had some faded blotches of blood and he couldn't feel anything in the left part of his chest, he was injured badly, but like a stubborn dog, he refused to let up.

"My god, do you ever admit that you need help?" asked a familiar voice.

A long piece of bandage suddenly began to wrap around Shadow's body like a snake. It didn't squeeze the life out of him and instead wrapped his entire abdomen up and brought a comforting feeling to his chest, as if he was slowly being healed. After his entire chest was wrapped up with the magical bandages, a shirtless jackal walked up next to Shadow and sat next to him.

"Why do you always come at night to talk to me?" asked Shadow coldly as he continued to watch the radiant moon.

Anubis chuckled at the question and knew for a fact that he had to be there with Shadow. It was something he had found out when he was working with him before.

"I'm the only one you can talk to Shadow. When something happens, good or bad, I'm pretty much the only one you can talk to." said the jackal smartly. "You can't talk to Sonic on a serious level, Knuckles wouldn't understand a word you'd say, Tails doesn't care much for you and Rouge is dead. Face it, I'm the only one you can confess your feelings to."

Shadow scoffed at the statement and yet he understood it fully. Out of all of the people he knew, there was no one else Shadow could talk to. Everyone else would single him out as the cold, uncaring hedgehog, but not Anubis. The jackal was either amazingly brave or incredibly stupid to find the patience to talk with the black hedgehog. But deep within his heart, Shadow enjoyed company. Both of them watched the moon as the sounds of gunfire sounded off in the distance, telling both of them that there was still rest at night.

"You know, an undead army would make this so much easier." joked the jackal, remembering Shadow's decision from the days before.

"I told you my answer already, Anubis." replied the distraught hedgehog as the soothing sensation from the bandages eased his pain even further.

"Yeah, yeah. You've got to keep your reputation and all of that cold, bad-ass crap. Save it for Sonic and the others 'cuz you know damn well that it won't work on me." said Anubis with a relaxed chuckle.

Both of them shared a cheap laugh for once. Shadow was comfortable around Anubis because he was like him in a way. The jackal's family has been dead for a long time, they both are the leaders of their team, neither age, both of them need to make sure that they don't look weak in front of their peers and they both hated Sonic the hedgehog. The only difference was the fact that Anubis was able to cope with other people other then pushing them away, like Shadow. The laughing died down and the silence ensued once again.

"So . . . what now?" asked Anubis out of nowhere.

The hedgehog turned his confused gaze onto the jackal, not fully understanding the question. "What do you mean?" he asked.

"What are you going to do about Eggman? Based off of your injuries, he's obviously too strong for you to handle." said Anubis as he positioned his gaze on Shadow's damaged chest.

A frustrated sigh escaped Shadow's lip at the question. "I was holding back, you know that. But either way, I think we're an even match." He said.

"The Chaos Emeralds?" inquired Anubis.

"We don't have much time to scour the world looking for them. Besides, even if we did, the world would've gone to hell by then." answered the frustrated hedgehog.

"So I guess you're going to have to wing it, huh?" asked Anubis as he leaned back on the concrete rooftop.

"I guess so." answered the hedgehog.

He was right. Unless Tails or the army could come up with a plan, everything would just have to be done by pure instinct alone. As Shadow stared at the moon he wondered what was going to happen to the world. Would Eggman finally take over the world after so long? Or would Sonic pull off a miracle and defeat him one again? The ebony hedgehog wished he had the ability to tell the future, so he can prepare for what is to come, but he knew that it would be impossible to do so. Everything was starting to change around him, for the better, or for the worst.

So I hope you understand why I put Anubis is this story. He's the only guy who Shadow can relate to and talk to in a normal talking sort of way. Because when Shadow talks to the other characters it usually an argument, a sappy conversation, or discussing a plan. But with Anubis, it's a normal conversation. If you don't like Anubis, then you're going to have to get used to him for about one more chapter.