12. A Promise to Keep

Shadow stood his ground, studying the creature in front of him. The problem was, although he could feel that she was building up to something major, he had no idea what she could actually do. The Professor never knew her to do anything but feed on the Chaos energy, except that time she went on a rampage. Her Chaos abilities are innate and instinctive, whatever they are. She may have cunning, but not intelligence. She's definitely got brute strength though.

The massive lizard had landed in a pool of the energy fluid. Shadow began skating around the lip of it, trying to draw her attention. He could feel that she was somehow investing Chaos energy into her hide, and suspected that it would be a very bad idea to touch her. So how do I stop her? I'm not sure what Sonic and his friend are doing, but if it draws her attention they will be in trouble. Of course! If I strike at the life support unit, that should hold her attention. And perhaps...put an end to her. Maria wouldn't have liked it, but the Professor was right, she's far too dangerous to leave loose and what sort of life is it to be always in stasis?

Now I just need to get up there without touching her, he thought a bit sourly. Oops, here she comes.

Gerald had never been able to work out whether the creature could still see or not after the rampage in which she had become fused to her life-support. He had said that she could certainly locate her prey, a fact she demonstrated by lunging towards Shadow as he moved. He darted further around the lip of the pool - he could outrun her easily enough, as she was barely able to stand on her legs and moved by slithering - but the point was to keep her attention focused on him, so he kept just out of reach. If fifty years of stasis had the same effect as on him...

As he'd hoped, she spun a couple of revolutions trying to catch up to him with her jaws and then stopped, dropping her chin to the floor as she panted for breath. Shadow made use of the pause to leap to one of the pipes that ran from the main unit on her back to her mouth and slide up it until he was able to home an attack in on the central power supply of the life-support unit.

The Biolizard didn't like that. She bellowed again and managed to buck him off; his elbow banged against her hide as he toppled back towards the floor and it felt like he'd stuck it in an electric outlet. Ouch! He managed to land on his feet and scoot clear as her head came around after him again.

A second circular chase ensued, slightly varied this time when he got to close to her massive tail. Yipe! Guess that's why she's called a Whiptail, he thought as he doubled back, having to dodge under the gaping jaws to escape the thrashing tail. She stopped again to pant, but as he started to approach he felt a shift in the Chaos energy, and suddenly a ball of black energy erupted from her open mouth. He ducked and immediately had to jump as a second black globe followed, crackling with blue veins of light. The power in those! If one of them hits me I'll be out for the count, he thought, and then she'll make sure I stay that way. I may be immortal or I may not, but I bet I won't survive being chewed up and digested!

He briefly considered trying a Chaos spear, but the energy currents were already so confused - between the Biolizard, the hyperactive Chaos Emeralds, whatever Sonic and his friend were doing, and the resonance of the Cannon itself - that he wasn't at all sure he could aim it properly. He settled for repeating his slide up the pipe to attack the life-support again, although this time he made sure to bounce clear after the attack..

Again the massive beast roared, flinging her head and tail up towards the ceiling, then she ducked her head and gave a massive shudder. Shadow's brief hope that he'd ended the fight vanished as a swarm of pink spheres appeared around her, forming a sort of shield that also crackled with stored Chaos energy. What in heaven's name - her eggs? The whiptails were chosen for the research because they were parthenogenic, but she's still supposed to lay the things, not just teleport them into the air around her!

Although, that makes one thing easier, he thought, as he performed a rapid series of homing attacks. Bouncing up the eggs like a ladder, he got high enough to target the beast's life support again. This time the Biolizard collapsed with a massive thud, and before either she or Shadow could stage another attack, there was a blinding green glow from the direction of the shrine, together with a painful surge of unfocused Chaos energy.

Shadow looked towards the shrine, shielding his eyes, in time to see the glow die. A massive green gem rested on the central altar, and the Chaos Emeralds were toppling from their positions atop the seven pillars.

He spun back to the lizard as with another ear-splitting screech, she vanished in a flare of blue light, leaving only a very familiar feeling behind. Shadow darted up to the top of the shrine to join Sonic and the other dokan. The red one looked at him and asked, "Is it gone?"

Shadow shook his head. "Is that what...Chaos Control is?" He'd used it himself enough, but had never felt anyone else use it. It was an eerie sort of feeling.

The three staggered as the colony shook even more violently. "Since we stopped the Chaos Emeralds, why is the Space Colony still on a crash course to Earth?" demanded the red dokan.

Before Shadow or Sonic could answer Doctor Eggman's voice came over the PA system. "The prototype is still alive! He's controlling the Space Colony as it is falling to Earth! He has become one with the Space Colony, and is determined to keep it on its collision course!!"

Sonic looked at Shadow. Shadow looked back, not sure what the other had in mind. "Sonic!" cried the red dokan. Sonic looked at him briefly, then back to Shadow, who could feel the other hedgehog starting to pull in Chaos energy. Shadow started to do the same, trying to match the feel of what Sonic was doing. The Emeralds began to rise into the air and orbit the pair, but the black hedgehog shut his own eyes when he saw Sonic close his, and focused on both drawing the power from the gems and imitating whatever it was the blue was doing.

He'd never felt anything like it. The power flooded into him, filled him until it felt like it must be about to burst out through his pores, then somehow coiled within him, and around him. It was immensely powerful, like the sun, and yet like the sun it was life. It had the potential to scorch him out of existence but instead it sustained and replenished him. He could feel his feet leaving the floor, could tell where everything in the room was even though his eyes were still closed, could feel the presence of the human and the other dokan in the computer control room and the Biolizard on the exterior of the colony. She had indeed merged with the cannon - perhaps not too surprising given that she'd previously merged with her life support system - and was fleeing for the Earth as the nearest place of safety. The lizard's mind was, of course, unable to comprehend that the atmosphere would burn her to a crisp before she reached land - she had tried to fight and now she was fleeing. Faced with an enemy she could not defeat, Earth was where she'd decided to go. And beside Shadow...

Sonic the Hedgehog glowed to his senses like all the Chaos Emeralds combined and then magnified. Shadow opened his eyes to see that the other was no longer blue but a glowing, metallic yellow, and then realized that his own black fur had also changed, to a pale golden-cream. Distantly he noted that the red marks on his arms and legs had not changed. Sonic's now-orange eyes caught Shadow's and the two teleported out of the colony.

Outside, Shadow was aware that they we no longer in the fizz field, but it didn't seem to matter. The energy that suffused his body shielded him from the vacuum, from the radiation that sleeted through it, from the deadly cold and decompression. His body converted the carbon dioxide it generated back into oxygen without need to breathe. And then his attention was drawn to the face of the colony.

The monstrous lizard truly had merged itself with the cannon, and its long neck and stumpy forelegs strained towards the planet as if it were pulling the colony by main strength. As Shadow looked at it, trying to figure out how to stop it, he realized that there were weak spots on the massive body, visible to his strange new senses. He started to move towards it - the thought of motion becoming the deed.

"Wait!"

Shadow stopped and looked back at the golden hedgehog. "Do you know about Super forms? You need to watch your energy level," explained Sonic, looking more serious than Shadow had yet seen him. "If you run out of energy," he waved a hand and one of the golden rings appeared briefly in his hand, "you'll lose control of the form, and out here you'll probably die. So be careful!

"Do you see the weak spots on that thing?"

"Yes," answered Shadow.

"Then let's go!" And the yellow hedgehog was off, diving with increasing speed towards the colony and the lizard. Shadow watched Sonic slam into one of the weak posts, then followed suit himself.

Thud! He slammed bodily into the closest weak point and felt the energy inside the beast shift again. He bounced away, noting how the weak spot vanished as the energy flooded into the area, but could tell that the damage remained. He felt Sonic hit the creature again, from the opposite side, and then suddenly the creature managed to focus the energy, not into the black spheres this time, but a pair of energy poles that knocked Shadow back and sent him tumbling end over end. Sonic's voice rang in his head, "Where does he get all that power? Is this the power of the Chaos Emeralds? Shadow, are you okay?"

"Yes," Shadow answered, or hoped he did. Righting himself, he realized that he actually could feel his own energy draining even as the Chaos energy overflowed within him. Spotting a ring of the rings nearby he scooted towards them and felt the energy in them convert into his own. Strange; but it appears Sonic is correct, I need these rings to retain control of the Chaos energy. But he couldn't detect any others nearby, and suddenly realized that Sonic's sense felt strangely weak..

"Sonic," he called silently - telepathically? -, "what are you doing? You're almost out of rings! Switch places with me!" Catching the other's assent, he surged forward, calling, "Here I come, you creep!" Did I really just say that? The excitement must be getting to me.

A few more collisions with the monster and it was Sonic's turn to call him off; locating another group of rings, Shadow headed towards them. They do seem to be attracted to the Chaos energy, or perhaps even generated by it. Watching as Sonic dodged the energy poles and weaved his way in to pound on the Biolizard again, Shadow realized something. I may have been designed to be the Ultimate Life-form, but I was designed. Sonic is as talented, but naturally so. He's the real Ultimate Life-form. Snatching up the rings in the vicinity, he returned to the fray.

And suddenly, it was over. The Biolizard's massive form lay draped lifelessly along the barrel of the Eclipse Cannon. The two hedgehogs had time for a brief moment of triumph before they realized that the battle was still not won: the ARK, no longer driven by the Chaos Emeralds or dragged by the Biolizard, was still falling towards the planet, caught in the ancient, inexorable grip of gravity. As one, Sonic and Shadow dove down to interpose their own tiny forms between the planet and the asteroid.

"No way that's getting through!" Sonic's voice and confidence washed over Shadow, who wasn't sure that he had the power to move even half of something as large as the ARK. Because they couldn't just stop it, the colony would begin to fall again as soon as they 'let go'; they needed to teleport the whole thing back to its balance point where gravity's pull in matched the orbit's pull out. Which meant a massive amount of energy, and Shadow could tell how tired he was beneath the Chaos buzz. But he matched Sonic's pace and direction, reaching out a hand - I can't do this, I can't, I'm losing my grip on this form. Then - as clear as a star in space - "Shadow... I beg of you..." Maria! "Give then a chance... to be happy!"

"Now Shadow!" In answer to Sonic's command and a decades-old plea, Shadow gritted his teeth, dragged every ounce of energy he possessed and paralleled Sonic towards the ARK. The two voices rang out in tandem, "Chaos Control!!" The huge half-sphere of the colony asteroid vanished in a flare of light, reappearing in its old orbit. "Yes!" cried Sonic, "We did it, Shadow! ...Shadow?"

He could still see Sonic, see the yellow form dwindling as he dropped towards the planet, caught in the fatal grip of gravity. He needed another ring; he fumbled at one of the bracelets that encircled his gloves, they were power rings... wait, how did it get above him? He saw it floating up and away towards space. He felt distantly the air around him heating, but there seemed to be enough of the super form remaining to shield him from the worst of it. Maria... this is what you wanted, right? He couldn't seem to move; he was more tired than he'd been in his whole brief life. This is my promise I made to you... He closed his eyes - he couldn't see Sonic anymore anyway, just space and stars above and the heat-glow around him. But the image of the world outside him was replaced by the vision of a girl, tall for her age but so thin, with sky-blue eyes and long golden hair. "You'll have to go down there Shadow, so you can tell me what it's like," said a voice from the past. I can't die now, Maria wouldn't like it. I have to tell her I did what she asked. Catching hold of the ragged remnants of the Chaos energy that had buoyed him so gloriously, Shadow the Hedgehog tried to focus his wandering mind and... reached...