Disclaimer: So here's the deal. I own no mention of and Sega characters or Pokémon characters, but this idea…Totally mine.

Chapter 2

Chaos Uncontrolled

Back at Freedom HQ

"Hey, Knucky. Feeling better?" Rouge the bat asked as Sonic and Knuckles entered Freedom HQ.

"I was fine in the first place," Knuckles lied. "I had Shadow right where I wanted him. He just…surprised me. That's all. I could have taken him out."

"Mm-hum. Sure you could have."

Knuckles marched up to her. "What are you saying?" he demanded.

She turned from him with her nose in the air and a devious smirk on her painted lips. "You don't have to pretend you're stronger than you really are. We'll still love you, even if Shadow can take you out with one hand tied behind his back."

Knuckles' face turned redder than normal with his rage. "Why, I oughtta—!"

"Calm down, Knuckles. Don't get so worked up. It's not your fault that you're weaker than Shadow."

Knuckles went from red to purple and opened his mouth to protest, but Sonic interrupted him with a nudge in his side.

"Don't let her get to you, Knux. She's just trying to get you riled up `cuz she thinks it's cute," he said with a wink. "Then again, maybe you like it when she fires you up. Maybe you think it's hot."

Knuckles squared his shoulders, trying to look tough but he was betrayed by his embarrassed red complexion. "She keeps saying that Shadow's stronger than I am just because I didn't see him coming. I can't help it if he's good at sneaking up on people. If he hadn't been such a coward, I would've taken him out without a problem."

"I'll accept a rematch any day," a familiar, dark voice said from the door. Amy, Sonic, Tails, Rouge, and Knuckles turned to look at Shadow, who was leaning in the doorway with his arms crossed in front of him and his normal scowl on his face.

Knuckles glared at the black hedgehog, fighting the urge to attack him then and there.

Shadow didn't notice, nor did he care. He looked around at the Freedom Fighters. "Where is everyone?" he asked, noting that there was only five there.

Sonic blinked at him. "Sally, Rotor, Bunny, and Antoine are out on a mission. Why are you here?"

Shadow's expression never changed as he walked further into the headquarters. "I need a favour from Tails," he said simply, walking over to the fox and pressing two round objects into his hand.

Tails stared at them, then looked at Shadow. "Your Inhibitor Rings?"

"Not exactly," Shadow replied. "I need you to examine them or whatever it is that you do."

"Okay…" Tails took a seat at his desk. "What exactly am I looking for?"

Shadow shook his head. "I don't know. Anything…out of the ordinary."

"Why?" Amy asked. "What could be wrong with them?"

Shadow ignored her and watched as Tails placed the Rings under a scanner.

That made Amy angry. "HELLO!" she shouted at Shadow. "I'm trying to ask you a question!"

Shadow continued to ignore her.

"Hey!" she said, marching straight up to him and tapping him on the shoulder. "I'm talking to you, Shadow! The least you could do is acknowledge me!"

"Hey Faker, has anyone ever told you that your girlfriend is really annoying?" he said, glancing at Sonic but ignoring Amy.

Sonic smirked, but made sure Amy didn't notice. He would feel it later if she found him agreeing with Shadow.

Amy huffed, crossed her arms, and marched away from the broody hedgehog. "I give up. It's no wonder you don't have any friends, Shadow. You're a jerk." She stuck her tongue out at him as she joined Sonic on the other side of the room.

A quiet beeping started from the scanner and Tails picked up the Rings. "Wow," he said, staring at the gold-coloured metal. He turned to Shadow, who was waiting patiently. "I've—I've never seen anything like this before. These Rings…They have a lot of Chaos energy in them. More than any Ring I've ever seen. Actually, they're more powerful than any Chaos Emerald I've ever seen!"

Shadow actually looked surprised. "So he wasn't lying…" he said quietly.

Tails blinked at him. "Who?"

Shadow didn't answer, but asked a question of his own. "Did you notice anything…odd about them at all? Anything potentially dangerous?"

Tails raised an eyebrow. "No. But it is a little weird that they can only be activated by you. Right now, they're kind of in a lock-down mode. If there's anything dangerous about them, I'm afraid you'll have to find it out yourself."

"Hm."

Sonic noticed that Shadow hesitated before taking the Rings back from Tails.

"What's up, Shadow? You seem…I dunno, nervous," the blue hedgehog said.

Shadow glanced at him dismissively, then focused on the Chaos Emeralds that were shining in the glass case that Sonic was leaning against. "That is not the best place for those," he commented. "It wouldn't be hard for someone to come in and take them when you're not looking.

Tails smiled. "Actually, it wouldn't be a problem for someone to take those. Those ones are fake; I made them to be a decoy. They don't even work. The real ones are here," he said, picking up a brown hiking bag that was sitting beside his desk. "I'm going to make sure that we always have them with us, without Sonic having to carry them around in his hair."

Shadow chuckled. "Yes; that is annoying." He looked at the Rings in his hand.

"Are you going to try them out?" Knuckles asked, forgetting his anger towards the hedgehog as his curiosity about the powerful Rings grew.

"Yeah, Shadow. Let's see what those babies can do," Rouge added.

Shadow hesitated.

"What's the matter, Faker?" Sonic asked. "Don't you want to see just how powerful those Rings are?"

"Of course. But…" His voice trailed off.

"Well, what are you waiting for?"

Shadow sighed. Maybe the Rings were just an honest experiment. There was only one way to find out...

Making a decision, Shadow removed one of his Inhibitor Rings, then the other, and set them on the desk in front of Tails. Sonic, Tails, Knuckles, Rouge, and Amy watched impatiently as Shadow placed a new Ring where the old one had been on his right wrist, then did the same with the left.

Immediately, he felt a new rush of power; something that normally only happened when he removed his Inhibitor Rings to release more Chaos energy than normal, or when he turned Super. Now he felt like he could release ten times that amount of force without ever needing to remove the new Rings. Eggman had been telling the truth after all.

Back in Robotropolis

"Uncle! Uncle!" Snively shouted. "The Rings have been activated!"

Eggman ran into the room as fast as his legs would carry his (rather plump) body. He stopped to catch his breath before leaning over Snively to stare at the screen.

Displayed on the large computer was a live video of what was happening at Freedom HQ, coming from the synthetic Rings on Shadow's wrists.

"Turn the camera!" Eggman demanded his nephew.

Snively grumbled and did as instructed.

The angle of the video changed so the two relatives could better see the room and people within it. Five figures appeared on the screen, and Eggman and Snively knew them to be Amy, Knuckles, Rouge, Tails, and the familiar blue hedgehog they had come to know and hate, Sonic.

Eggman punched the air excitedly. "It worked! He fell for it! I'm so genius, I scare myself! OH HO HO HO!"

Snively smiled. "Yes. Now all we have to do is press this button…"

Eggman's eyes widened in horror as the words TELEPORTATION SEQUENCE INITIATED. DESTINATION: RANDOM flashed in big red letters across the screen before the video went black.

"NO!" he shouted and whipped to face Snively. "What did you do?!"

"I pressed the button to send them away," his nephew replied casually. "That was the plan, wasn't it?"

"No!" Eggman screeched. "Only half of the Freedom Fighters were there! Sally, Rotor, Bunny, Antoine, the Chaotix; nearly all of our other enemies are still here! And I have the feeling that they will be mad at us for getting rid of their friends."

Snively stared in wide-eyed horror at his uncle. "I never thought about that…"

In Freedom HQ

"How do they feel, Shadow?" Sonic asked with a smile.

Shadow resisted the urge to smile back. "Good," he said in reply. "Amazing, actually. You would quite enjoy the feeling, Sonic, I'm sure."

Sonic shrugged. "I get that feeling when I'm in my Super form."

"I know. I have it, too. But this…this is something else."

It was true. He felt so powerful that he dare not unleash any Chaos energy while inside the building.

"Where did you get them, anyways?" Rouge asked. "It's hard to believe that you would just find them lying around, and Tails said that they are connected specifically to you."

Shadow looked at her. "Actually, they were given to me."

"By who?" everyone asked at the same time.

Shadow smiled. "It is unimportant." He gazed at the new Inhibitor Rings on his wrists. The power was real, he knew, but there was still something about them that was still bothering him. He knew Eggman had a second motive for everything he did, but he couldn't see what that motive could be in this case. Yes, he knew he currently harnessed more Chaos energy than he ever had in his natural state, but something was strange about it. It was as though the power was not actually his, but rather he was borrowing it from someone else.

He turned to the door. "I should go now," he said and started towards it. He heard a series of different voices say good-bye and he stopped, but not because of them.

Suddenly, he felt different. Chaos energy was building up in him. He felt it. The Rings warmed around his wrists.

He felt a hand on his shoulder. "What's wrong, Shadow?" Sonic asked from beside him.

Shadow didn't answer, but only because he wasn't sure. The Rings grew even warmer, and the heat spread throughout his entire body. It felt like Chaos Control, but with more energy than he had ever felt—even as Super Shadow. And he hadn't commanded it.

The heat grew steadily until it was no longer warm, but hot. Especially around his wrists. And yet, he was cold.

He shivered. "Something's happening…" he whispered to Sonic.

Sonic was worried. "You should take those off, Shadow. Tails, can you bring him back his Rings?"

Tails appeared at his other side, and Knuckles, Amy, and Rouge gathered as well.

The energy was growing, and Shadow felt like any moment he would explode with it. And it hurt. It hurt more than he knew was possible.

The Rings grew hotter and smoke started up from them.

Shadow fell to his knees as a sudden stab of pain entered his body. He was shivering uncontrollably now, and the Freedom Fighters had grown frantic.

"They're burning me!" Shadow hissed through the pain, pulling at the Rings. They refused to move.

Tails grabbed his wrist and latched onto the Ring. He let go immediately with a cry of pain. "They're red-hot!" he exclaimed, and it was true. The Rings' colour had changed from gold to redish-orange, as though held over a fire for a long period of time.

"GGAAAHHH!" Shadow screamed with the pain, unable to contain it.

By now, all five of the others were trying to pull the Rings off.

"What's happening?" Knuckles asked worriedly.

Shadow gritted his teeth. "Eggman—" he started, but another knife rippled through him. The Chaos energy continued to augment, but he couldn't control it. He knew that if he released it, the power would destroy everything and everyone in Freedom HQ.

"Eggman!" Sonic exclaimed. "Are you saying you got these Rings from Eggman?"

Shadow couldn't answer. He was focusing on keeping the Chaos power in him, but he was losing energy quickly now, the Chaos pushing to be free.

"Shadow…" Amy said, "You're glowing!"

Finally unable to contain it anymore, the Chaos burst out of Shadow in a bright red light. The heat in his wrists grew more and more. He heard a scream and realized it was his own. He heard voices yelling for him and each other, but from a great distance.

More pain shot through him as the Chaos poured out and the Rings heated. Red light surrounded him, covered him, entered him, until it was his entire being. His wrists burned and he could smell the cooking flesh. He closed his eyes against the pain. He wished it would stop! Make it stop!

Finally, he felt the burning of the Rings decrease as they shattered out from his hands, and then the burning was gone from his body, too. He felt as though he was falling, and he was suddenly very tired. He tried to open his eyes, but they refused to obey, and his fatigue overcame him.

He didn't even feel it when he hit the ground.

On another world

"And then I told Paul that it's more helpful to Chimchar if you encourage it even when it makes a mistake. But wouldn't you know it, Paul just ignored me!" the boy with the red baseball cap told his two friends. "Honestly, I don't know how any of them can stand having such a jerk for a trainer!"

"It's not like they can just up and leave him, Ash," the dark-skinned boy said, looking at his friend with his squinted eyes. "The trainer has to let them go first. The whole point of a Pokéball is to keep the Pokémon close."

"Well, I don't think they should let guys like Paul be trainers at all," said the girl with the almost-blue hair. "It should be against the law."

Ash smiled and stroked the yellow creature on his shoulder. "At least you don't belong to someone like Paul, eh, Pikachu?"

"Pika!" the animal replied happily, rubbing against his best friend's cheek.

Ash laughed. "Yup. I guess not all of them can be as lucky as you are, Pikachu."

"Hey—Ash, what's that over there?" the girl asked, pointing to the sky above some trees just a short distance away.

Ash followed her finger and saw what she was pointing at. "I don't know, Dawn…It's some kind of weird red light. What do you think, Brock?"

The oldest boy squinted at the light. "It looks like a move of some kind… Hey! Look! Something's falling from it!"

He pointed, and sure enough, an odd black shape had taken the place of the light and was falling rapidly to the ground. It disappeared behind the trees.

The three friends looked at each other.

"Ash," Dawn said slowly, "you don't think that was a Pokémon…"

Ash was already running in the direction of the object. "I don't know," he called over his shoulder, "but if it is, it may need us. Come on!"

Brock and Dawn looked at each other uncertainly, then took off after their friend.