6. Return to Prison Island
The doctor had given Shadow his white Chaos Emerald, and Shadow had installed it and the bat's blue while listening to the other two talk. She'd insisted that several Chaos Emeralds were locked in a vault on Prison Island. Shadow frowned; he did NOT want to go back there. Suddenly he realized that Rouge was again watching him the whole time she was speaking to the doctor. He scowled at her - and she had the audacity to wink at him. Shadow hmphed to himself and turned his back on both of them; pretending that he needed to monitor the computer as it adjusted to the influx of power. He had spoken occasionally to women on the ARK, but the only female he had any regular interaction with was Maria... and he had the feeling that this bat was a completely different sort of person.
And now, here they were, courtesy of the doctor's teleporter; back again on the Island where Gerald and Shadow had been held prisoner. At the moment they were not in the GUN facility itself but standing in the dense jungle that grew above the largely underground base. Shadow closed his eyes a moment and stretched out with his senses...yes. There were two - no three - gems here, one of which was very familiar to him. I wonder if the Gizoid is here too? Rouge the Bat may have been a sneak and an annoyance, but her information was good. He opened his eyes again as the doctor began to speak.
He listened as Gerald's grandson outlined his plan; the human would serve as a decoy himself, using his mech to shoot up the harbor and the ships moored there. Meanwhile Rouge was to get in and locate the Chaos Emeralds while Shadow planted dynamite packs and a timed detonator. Shadow examined the detonator as he headed into the jungle. It was a neat, compact device, although the doctor apparently had a bit of an ego - a stylized caricature of his face was emblazoned on the front, next to the words 'Eggman Bombom'.
He planted a half-dozen of the dynamite packs in the jungle - some of which was actually swamp, he discovered when he nearly sank into a bog that had looked like solid grass, saving himself only by a dash along a line of the golden rings that were here as well - and was putting one on a ship in the harbor when the doctor turned up again. The noise of his decoy attack had been clearly audible in the nearer part of the jungle. "Okay, everyone ready?" he cried gaily as Rouge joined them. "Shadow, Rouge, on with the show!"
Before Shadow could continue his own task someone grabbed him around the middle! "Oh, Sonic!" cried a girl's voice, "I thought I'd never see you again! I'm so glad you made it!" He tried to turn around but she was clinging like a vine - and was she kissing the back of his neck?
He managed to twist in the girl's grasp as she suddenly realized her mistake. Letting go as if stung, she backed away, exclaiming "You're not Sonic, who are you?!" She was a pink hedgehog in a red dress.
"I'm the one who should be asking that question!" interrupted Eggman, raising a gun over the edge of his walker's cockpit.
"Dr. Eggman!" she cried, and ran away with a shriek. Unfortunately, she was stopped by the edge of the ship and turned back to face Shadow and the advancing mech.
Eggman growled to himself. "Amy, your timing is impeccable!" Looking over at Shadow and Rouge, he said "Listen to me; I'll take care of her, you two go on ahead!" The irritated scientist guided his walker to the edge of the ship near the girl. "Give up, Amy!"
Shadow was already darting away. If the Doctor knows who she is, why did he say he 'should be asking that question'? he wondered. She thought I was Sonic; the doctor thought the same when he woke me up. But...he's bright blue, and I'm not only black but have red stripes, so why do people keep thinking I'm him? He considered the unanswerable question for a moment then tabled it for later consideration. The front of the facility was in chaos, with soldiers and robots swarming like angry bees. As soon as Shadow saw a gap he became a black blur streaking through the front entrance. Dodging patrols again, he planted dynamite packs in the base itself, then found an emergency exit near the back. Hmmm, he thought as he read the sign, 'Alarm will sound if door is opened.' Good. Although blowing up the base felt good, like justice for the destruction of his own home, he didn't really want to kill the soldiers here. After fifty years it was unlikely that any who had been involved in the attack were here on the island, and he had a feeling that the attack had not been general knowledge to start with. He'd checked the old news reports briefly and found only mention of a terrible but unspecified disaster, that most of the colonists had been rescued from in the nick of time. GUN had been considered greatly heroic in their efforts to mobilize enough shuttles to evacuate the colony. Just to make certain, he punched his fist against a nearby fire alarm button, then opened the door and scooted out into the jungle.
An apparently forgotten equipment shed, half buried in vines, received the last dynamite pack and then the detonator itself. He clicked on his radio. "I'm in position Doctor. Tell me when."
Eggman sounded highly put out. "There's been an unexpected delay on my end. There's no more time to waste! Set the timer for fifteen minutes! Let's go, Rouge!"
"Five minutes should be plenty," was the bat's flippant rejoinder. "Here I go!" The radio went silent again.
Shadow set the timer as instructed and made certain that the detonator wasn't visible from the outside, although in truth it didn't look like anyone had been near the shed in months. Then he started walking back towards the meeting point, taking the chance to really look at the strange area he was in. He wasn't forgetting that there was an alarm going on and a lot of dynamite packs around the area that were soon to explode, but he had plenty of time and the GUN soldiers would all be down near the docks, where the heliport as well as the ships were. So he took his time, trailing his fingers across the enormous trunks, wondering why this one was rough, and that one smooth; breathing the scents of strange flowers, and growing and decaying vegetation; noting the tiny creatures that flitted or scurried among the trees and - that was a butterfly! He followed the little insect without really thinking, only remembering that Maria had remembered them from her brief time on Earth, and how she'd described them. And in truth, it did look like a floating flower, brilliantly blue and gold, seeming to just bounce effortlessly along in the air in defiance of gravity. He started and lost sight of it as his radio crackled.
"This is Rouge. I've got a small problem... I can't believe that I'm trapped inside this locked safe with the Chaos Emeralds! I guess I won't be able to call myself a treasure hunter anymore..."
Shadow glanced at the timer on his radio - just under nine minutes until the island exploded. So much for the bat being useful. But his mind offered an image of Rouge, sitting against a wall waiting for the explosion, then superimposed one of Maria, leaning on the console as death pounded on the door to the lab. If I could have teleported her away then...
"Ah...shoot," he growled. "Troublemaker!" He reached for the Emeralds - but they were too far for him to draw the power he needed. He began moving through the jungle as quickly as possible, trying to get close enough to use Chaos Control to teleport in to where the Emeralds - and presumably Rouge - were. He made good use of his recently-discovered lightdash every time he hit a string of rings headed the right direction. Hitting another swampy spot he vaulted into the trees and leaped from branch to branch above the stagnant water.
"Hey, that's..." The voice came from below and behind.
Shadow jerked his head around fast enough to yank a muscle. "That blue hedgehog again, of all places!" he exclaimed in irritation, as he recognized the person below him.
Sonic was darting towards him across a sort of island in the swamp. "I found you, faker!"
Shadow again felt that stab - part hurt, part fear - of being shunned by a 'real' dokan. And this blue freak didn't even know him! How dare he dismiss the Ultimate Life-Form so casually! "Faker? I think you're the fake hedgehog around here," he replied, his cool tones masking his inner turmoil. "You're comparing yourself to me? Hah! You're not even good enough to be my fake!"
His words seemed to strike home in turn. The blue's eyes narrowed in anger and he raised a fist as Shadow dropped onto the little island. "I'll make you eat those words!!" And he hurled himself into the air and, curling into a spiky ball, homed on Shadow.
Shadow was too shocked to dodge, barely getting his arms up in time to block the blue from smashing directly into his chest. The impact drove him back two steps but he managed to keep his feet. As the other jumped again, Shadow did his own jump-curl and the two bounced off each other in mid air. He shouldn't be able to DO that!! No time to worry about that now.
Sonic landed wrong after the third clash, and Shadow tucked and rolled along the ground as the blue dokan tried to catch his balance. Seventy pounds of Ultimate Life-Form smashing into the backs of Sonic's knees sent him down into the mud. He leapt up and did another homing attack that Shadow did dodge, then tried to tackle the black hedgehog bodily. Shadow scooted forward, spun and rolled into Sonic again as he stumbled through the spot Shadow had just vacated. Sonic leapt to his feet and they faced off a moment, both panting.
It wasn't until his radio crackled at him that Shadow remembered the situation. Even as realization dawned, the Doctor's voice cried over the air, "Shadow? What are you doing?! Get back here right now before the island blows up with you on it!"
Shadow barely registered Sonic's shocked "Blows up!?" as he saw the timer now read one minute, twenty-five seconds. He glanced wordlessly at Sonic and fled, feeling the power of the Emeralds as he ran. The instant he could pull enough power, he teleported, praying he'd land in a clear spot and arriving on a crate in the vault with less than a minute left. Dashing across the room he'd arrived in, seeing only Rouge's surprise as she rose to her feet, and the three gems she cradled, he stretched out a hand and yelled " CHAOS CONTROL!!"
Later, he saw the recordings of the explosion, taken by helicopters fleeing the area. Due to the alarms he'd set off, a few of the dynamite packs had been discovered, which had triggered a general evacuation. He was relieved to learn that all the soldiers had gotten off; certainly no one could have survived the subsequent explosions. Judging by the films, the entire island had gone up in flames and concussion.