SHADOW THE HEDGEHOG
Disclaimer: I do not own the sonic characters, just the OC's
Chapter Fourteen: Lava Shelter
After the defeat of the G.U.N. commander, Shadow spent his time in the base looking for a way to reach the ARK. Unfortunately, the only space crafts they had were destroyed when the Black Arms attacked. Seeing as how G.U.N. could not help him, he had only one person to turn to: Dr. Eggman. Shadow had not seen Eggman personally since the entire Cryptic Castle incident and knew that he would be hiding in a new location.
Lucky for him, Shadow has had someone keeping track of Eggman's movements ever since he was released from suspended animation on Prison Island. But in the current time, he wishes he hadn't. The person he had keep track of Eggman was...Kumori. Shadow knew that if he went to Kumori, she would reveal his location in exchange for him going out on a date with her. He really didn't want to go out on a date with his prototype. But right now, he didn't have a choice. With his mind made up, Shadow raced off to Station Square.
Shadow stood atop one of the buildings in the city and looked down to the streets. By the looks of it, the Black Arms have attacked this city too. But the damage was not as extensive as the former Central City. Even though she was a hedgehog among humans, it wasn't going to be easy to find Kumori. Then suddenly, out of nowhere come a pair of arms that wrap around Shadow and crush him. Shadow knew that those arms could only belong to Kumori.
"Oh, Shadow! I missed you so much!" Kumori screamed. The screaming was hurting Shadow's ears because she was only an inch from him. After taking a moment, Shadow released himself from Kumori's hold and looked at her with a serious expression. "Listen Kumori, I don't have time for this. I need to know where Eggman is hiding right now." Shadow said. "Aww, aren't you even going to say hello. You take things way to seriously." Kumori said. "You don't understand. Eggman is the only person who can help me get to the ARK. So do you know where he is or not?" Shadow questioned.
See that Shadow was serious about this, Kumori decided to give in. "Alright, I'll tell you. But only on one condition." Kumori said. "Here we go" Shadow said in his mind. As Shadow predicted, Kumori was going to ask for a date. "You have to take me with you." Kumori said. "I already told you the answer is—what?" Shadow said, surprised that Kumori didn't ask him for a date. "You're probably wondering why I didn't ask for a date, right?" Kumori asked. Shadow nodded his head, still in shock.
"You want to get to the ARK so you can get to those aliens, right." Kumori asked. Shadow nodded his head again. "I agree that those aliens need to be stopped, which means there is no time for a date. We have to put an end to those aliens reign." Kumori said. "Finally, you're talking sense." Shadow said. "And then we can go on a date." Kumori continued, causing Shadow to groan. Kumori ran off with Shadow following behind, headed towards Eggmans base.
After running over a hundred miles, Shadow and Kumori stop at the base of an active volcano. "Are you telling me that Eggman's base is inside this volcano?" Shadow asked. "Yep, pretty much." Kumori said. "Why can't the doctor ever pick someplace normal to build a base?" Shadow asked himself. "Maybe he doesn't like neighbors." Kumori said. Shadow looked at Kumori like she was crazy. Seeing Shadow's expression, Kumori said "What? It could be a possibility." "Never mind, let's go." Shadow said as they both ran into the secret entrance of the base.
Shadow and Kumori were now standing on a platform that was being held up by the lava below them. The heat of the place was intense. Even Shadow could be seen losing his cool. "How does...Eggman survive...in a place like this?" Kumori asked panting from the heat. "Who knows? But we have to keep moving. We don't want to stay in one place too long." Shadow said. Shadow and Kumori trudged through the blazing base, hoping to find Eggman before they were boiled alive.
The two black hedgehogs walked around the base, too hot to run, and have found absolutely no sign of Eggman anywhere inside. Finally, Kumori collapses to the ground from severe dehydration. "Kumori, are you ok?" Shadow asked. Kumori did her best to move, but she had no strength left in her body. "No, I can't move." Kumori said. Shadow tried to walk over and help her, but collapsed from dehydration as well. Shadow took one last look at Kumori before his vision went black.
One hour later, Shadow woke up and felt surprisingly cool. Shadow looked around and found that he had been moved to a new location. Shadow got up to his feet and examined his new surroundings. It looked like he was still in the volcano, only the area was cooled by a large ventilation system. Shadow continued to scan the area until he spotted Kumori on the ground a few feet away from him. "Kumori!" Shadow yelled with concern. Shadow ran over to Kumori's side and grabbed her in his arms.
Shadow shook Kumori, trying to wake her up. "Kumori! Kumori! Wake up!" Shadow shouted. After a few seconds, Kumori's eyes open to gaze upon Shadow. Almost instantly, Kumori wrapped Shadow into a bone-breaking hug. "Shadow. I was so worried that you were hurt." Kumori said. "I will if you don't let go." Shadow said choked out. Kumori let go of Shadow and got back up to her feet. "Where are we?" Kumori asked. "I don't know." Shadow replied. "Why, you two are in the center of my base." A familiar voice came from above
Suddenly, a four-legged red robot with three slots dropped down in front of the black hedgehogs. "Doctor?" Shadow said. "Shadow, Kumori. What are you two doing here?" Eggman questioned. "Doctor, we need to use one of your space crafts to reach the ARK." Shadow said. "Not a chance. You see, those aliens need the seven chaos emeralds to complete their plans. And as long as I have my own chaos emerald, nothing can stop me." Eggman said. "You have a chaos emerald?" Shadow asked. "Yes and I will use it to destroy you with my greatest creation, the Egg Dealer." Eggman said.
The slots on the Egg Dealer started spinning until they stopped on three missile signs. "Ha-ha, prepare for missile fever." Eggman said. Then, missiles launched out of the sides of the Egg Dealer and headed towards Shadow and Kumori. Using their speed, Shadow and Kumori avoided the missiles and ran towards the Egg Dealer. Shadow jumped into the air and used a homing attack on Eggman, but was sent back by an invisible barrier around Eggman.
"Ugh, damn him." Shadow swore. While Shadow was busy fighting Eggman, Kumori noticed that the slots were still spinning and when they matched, the Egg Dealer would launch an attack at Shadow. So what would happen if Shadow used them instead? "Shadow, try and use those slots against Eggman!" Kumori yelled. Shadow took notice that there were three buttons under each slot and thought they the key to stopping the slots. "This better work or you're dead, Kumori!" Shadow yelled.
When Shadow wasn't looking, Eggman landed another row of missiles signs and launched them at him. Shadow saw the missiles out of the corner of his eye and nearly avoided them with his super speed. After avoiding the missiles, Shadow jumped into the air and used a homing attack on the three buttons of the Egg Dealer. After hitting the buttons three times, three picture of Shadow appeared on the slots. "No! Not Shadow fever! Why did I put that one in anyway?" Eggman said.
Shadow felt an unusual amount of energy enter his body and recognized this familiar sensation. This was the same sensation he felt whenever he used his chaos blast. "You made a big mistake challenging me, Eggman." Shadow said. Shadow's body was wrapped in a red glow light. Shadow ran under the Egg Dealer and released all the stored chaos energy. "CHAOS BLAST!!!" Shadow yelled. The blast completely destroyed the Egg Dealer, but allowed Eggman to survive. During the blast, the chaos emerald was shot out of the Egg Dealer and was caught by Shadow.
Eggman groaned as he sat up and rubbed his aching head. Shadow walked over to Eggman and surprisingly offered a hand to Eggman to help the doctor up. Eggman was hesitant at first, but accepted the offer and was back on his feet. "I guess you beat me fair and square, Shadow." Eggman said. "Doctor, we need to use one of your space crafts to reach the ARK. Allow us to use one, please." Shadow said. "Give me one reason why I should." Eggman said. "The ARK was built by your grandfather, Eggman. I would have expected you to hold it sacred since you looked up to him." Shadow said.
Shadow got Eggman that time. All his life, Eggman always looked up to his grandfather as a hero and respected him. And now his grandfather's greatest creation was being used by aliens bent on destroying the world. There was no way he was going to stand for that. "Alright, you convinced me! Let's get out there and destroy those alien thieves!" Eggman shouted. "So you'll let us use your space craft?" Shadow asked. "I would, but I don't have any." Eggman said. "Great. The 'genius' was too stupid to build a space ship." Kumori complained.
Shadow was officially out of ideas. Since neither G.U.N. nor Eggman had any way of getting to the ARK, the entire world was doomed. Just as the trio was about to give up hope, they heard what sounded like rocket engines. The trio looked up to see a red round space shuttle with Sonic standing on top of it. "Hey, Shadow. What's happening?" Sonic called out. "Sonic? How did you find us?" Shadow asked.
The window of the shuttles cockpit lowered to reveal Tails in the pilot's seat. "That's easy. I placed a tracking device on your quill when we helped the president escape." Tails said. Shadow checked his quills and pulled out a small square chip, just like Tails said. "You're good, kid" Shadow complimented. "Looks like those black creatures are headed out to space. they're on their way to the ARK, so I guess that means we're going too! So hurry up. Next stop, the ARK." Sonic said.
The shuttle lowed itself so that Shadow and the others could enter inside. Shadow and Kumori entered the shuttle with Eggman followed close behind them. "Hey! What's he doing here!?" Knuckles voice came from the back. Shadow looked around the shuttle and saw the entire hero gang onboard. "Looks like the whole gang is here." Shadow said in his mind. "He is coming with us. He could be of some use later." Shadow said. "buckle your seatbelts everyone because were off." Tails said from the pilot's seat. The shuttle changed it direction and flew off into the sky, towards Space Colony: ARK.
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