SHADOW THE HEDGEHOG
Disclaimer: I do not own the sonic characters, just the OC's
Chapter Eight: Mad Matrix
After the battle against Eggman, Shadow was trying to leave the castle, but there was one problem. He had lost his way. "How am I supposed to get out of here if I don't know where 'here' is?" Shadow asked himself. Shadow had been traveling the strange castle, with absolutely no idea where he was headed, and usually ran into a dead end. But while he was walking down another hallway, an unknown sound had reached his ears. Shadow focused on the new sound to find that it sounded like computer keys being pressed.
Shadow followed the sound down the hallway until he reached a metal door and opened it. The room he had entered was completely different then the rest of the castle. Instead of stone, the walls were made of metal and a large computer core was at the center of the room. Shadow saw a new character at the control console of the computer and decided to investigate who it was.
Shadow silently walked up to the stranger but was then caught by surprise as the stranger turned around and held a large shuriken to his neck. The stranger was a purple chameleon with a yellow horn between his eyes, three black spikes on his back and a long coiled tail. The stranger was wearing white gloves with black cuffs with white bandages and small grey compartments, violet shoes with black straps and cuffs with bandages above them. Judging by the large shuriken and the accurate hearing, Shadow could tell that this guy was a ninja.
"Who are you? Are you an assassin?" questioned the chameleon. "No, my name is Shadow the hedgehog." Shadow explained. Once he had heard Shadow's name, the chameleon lower his shuriken and placed it into one of the compartments on his wrist. "So you're Shadow, huh? I am Espio of Team Chaotix. Charmy talks about you a lot." Espio said. "You know the little pest?" Shadow asked. "Unfortunately." Espio replied before turning back to the computer console.
"So what are you doing in a place like this?" Shadow asked. "I am trying to hack into Eggman's computer main frame to figue out Eggman's plans. But I'm not very good at it." Espio said. Shadow walked up to the console and pushed Espio out of the way. "Well, this is an amazing coincidence. I am also interested in the good doctor's plans." Shadow said. Shadow raised his hand up and brought it down hard onto the computer.
After Shadow struck the console, the core in the center glowed and opened up a portal to a digital dimension. "This should take us straight to the doctor's computer main frame. It is their, we will find what we need." Shadow said. "We?" Espio asked. "Do you want my help or not?" Shadow returned the question. "Very well, let's go." Espio said. Shadow and Espio jumped into the portal and began their search.
When Shadow and Espio first arrived in the digital dimension, they both landed on a strip of light that forced them into ball form. "What's going on?" Shadow asked. "I don't know." Espio replied. They two hackers used their ball forms to travel along the light-way until they reached the end and were facing a small computer terminal. "This must be the terminal to Eggman's files." Espio said as he accessed the terminal.
When Espio had gained access to the files, he learned that all the files were incomplete. "Eggman is much more clever then I thought. He apparently fragmented the data and sent it to three more terminals." Espio explained. "Any idea where they are?" Shadow asked. "They should be in the towers in the upper levels. Let me get the data from here and we'll go." Espio said. Espio pulled out a small disk from behind his back and placed it in the terminal to download the information. Once the download was complete, Espio took the disk and followed Shadow to the upper levels.
When Shadow and Espio reached the upper level, the looked out to see a maze of light-ways leading to red, green, yellow towers. "I'm guessing those are the towers." Shadow said. "Yes, it would seem that we have a need to split up." Espio said. Espio threw Shadow a blank disk and he caught it and looked at Espio. "Once you reach the terminal, download the information on to this disk so we will have it for later." Espio said. "Got it" Shadow said as they both used the light-ways to head off into different directions.
Espio had arrived to the green tower and was face with five colored pads on the ground in front of him. "Hmm...what could these be for?" Espio thought as he looked from the colored pads to the electric gate guarding the entrance. Espio got down on his knees and touched the colored pad, causing it to change colors. "I get it, if I want to get past the defenses, then I must match the color together." Espio said. After a few minutes of figuring out the color patterns, Espio managed to match the colors and opened the electrical gate.
Once inside, Espio found three float color pad similar to the ones outside and quickly knew what had to be done. As Espio was about to reach out to the pads, three egg pawns appeared out of nowhere and aimed their lasers at Espio. "Wasn't expecting that." Espio said. The egg pawns launch their assault on Espio as he pulled out a large shuriken to block the lasers. Espio knew that his shuriken would not provide as a good shield, so he put the shuriken away and formed a hand sign before disappearing into thin air.
The egg pawns looked all over the area hoping to find him, only to be sliced in half by the air. When the egg pawns were destroyed, Espio appeared once more and rearranged the color pads to match each other. When Espio was done, the gravity in the room had suddenly disappeared and Espio floated upwards into a higher level of the tower. When Espio touched down to a higher level, the gravity turned back on as he walked over to a terminal he had just found. Espio placed and empty disk inside the terminal and downloaded the information. Two down, two to go.
When Shadow arrived at the yellow tower, he too found a color pad security system, but figured it out much faster then Espio. When Shadow had reached the inside of the tower, he found the computer terminal only a few feet away from him. "This seems too easy." Shadow thought. Shadow walked over to the terminal until he was unexpectedly attacked by a Black Annelid. "So, the doctor decided to take these creature for research. This makes things a lot more interesting." Shadow said.
The Black Annelid lunged at Shadow, but he had managed to avoid the attack with enough time. The Black Annelid burrowed underground so that Shadow couldn't follow it. "Where did it go?" Shadow asked. He question was soon answered when the Black Annelid struck Shadow from under his feet. See his chance, Shadow shouted "CHAOS SPEAR!" and his signature attack killed the alien worm in an instant. With his opponent dead, Shadow walked over and placed the empty disk he received inside the terminal. Three down, one to go.
After obtaining the information from the yellow and green towers, Shadow and Espio met up in front of the red tower. "Greetings, Shadow. I expect your mission went successful." Espio said. Shadow smirked as he held up the small disk before throwing it to Espio. "Of course." Shadow said. "That leaves only one more terminal and it should be inside this tower." Espio said as he looked towards the tower. "Well then, what are we waiting for?" Shadow said as he ran off with Espio close behind.
Shadow and Espio made it in the tower with no problem until they ran into a group of egg paws and Black Annelids. "I'll take the black aliens, you get the robots." Shadow instructed. "Right." Espio said as he pulled out a large shuriken and jumped at the mini robots. The egg pawns raised their lasers at Espio and fired them on the ninja chameleon. Espio used his shuriken as a shield before throwing it at the egg pawns and sliced through three of the robots. Espio caught the shuriken when it came back and found himself surrounded by the robots when he touched the ground.
"That isn't good." Espio said. The egg pawn raised their lasers at the chameleon once more. Thinking fast, Espio jumped out of the way of the lasers and allowed them to destroy each other. "Not very smart are they?" Espio said. Shadow was now faced with three giant Black Annelids that would make any man run in fear. But not Shadow. Shadow decided to not hold back on these guys as he pulled out his newly acquired, white chaos emerald. "Die, you alien freaks! CHAOS CONTROL!" Shadow shouted before disappearing. After a few seconds of waiting, a black tornado surrounded them and then Shadow appeared once again.
Time seemed to have stopped for a moment as everyone was waiting for something to happen. Then, cut marks appeared all over the Black Annelids and then they fell to pieces, literally. While Shadow was busy fighting the aliens, Espio decided to reach the last terminal and download all the information off of it. "That's the last bit of data." Espio said as he held up to complete disk. "I couldn't have done it with out you. Thank you, Shadow." Espio said as he bowed his head in respect.
"Come on, lets get out of here." Shadow said. Shadow grabbed Espio by his arm and raised his chaos emerald into the air. "CHAOS CONTROL" Shadow shouted. And in a flash of white light, Shadow and Espio were gone.
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