Disclaimer: I still don't own the Sega dudes, and neither do I own the Pokémon dudes.

Chapter 3

Another World

The sound of chirping animals and the smell of clean soil forced Shadow's eyes open. He blinked, trying to clear his head, and realized he was lying on his back inside an tent of some kind that had no bottom. The sunlight outside cast an orange-yellow glow around the small area.

He pushed himself up, instantly regretting the use of his hands as searing pain entered his wrists. Oh, yeah, he thought to himself, Eggman's Rings…

Shadow stood up with a groan and poked his head out the door to look around. When he couldn't see anyone, he stepped out. He was in a campsite of some kind on the edge of a field where the grass was half as tall as he was, but he didn't recognize the area.

Chaos Control must have sent me to another world, he thought to himself. But where?

He looked around, trying to get a sense of where he was. All of it seemed relatively the same as his home world; the trees and grass were tall, the soil smelled fresh and clean, and animals could be heard moving around in the woods and trees. The difference was that the trees and grass were a kind he had never seen before, the soil's scent was unfamiliar, and he couldn't identify the animal sounds in the woods. He could smell the other animals, and none of them had the scent of people from his world.

Shadow looked around the camp. He could tell it had only been set up for no more than half an hour, and it had been set up in a hurry. The tent was lop-sided, the fireplace was an irregular circle of stones without any wood or fire, and the footprints and trampled grass all around the area showed signs of a frenzy just a short while ago.

He figured that whoever had found him had gone to get supplies or something and he decided he didn't have time to stick around to wait for them to come back. He had to try to find the others. If they had been caught in Chaos Control, then there was a good chance that Sonic, Tails, Amy, Knuckles, and Rouge were here with him. If they hadn't been brought to this world, then they would most likely have been destroyed by the blast of Chaos energy. He hoped for their sake that they had been teleported as well.

So, without any further thought, he turned to the field and started across it.

He only made it halfway when a sound behind him caught his ear. He turned towards the trees by the tent, where the sound was coming from.

It was only another half a minute before a small, fat, and annoyingly cute yellow creature ran towards him from out of the trees. It stopped right in front of him and Shadow looked down at the odd animal. It was up to his waist, and had long pointy ears with black tips, as well as red splotches on its cheeks, brown stripes on its back, and a tail shaped like a lightning bolt. It blinked at him while Shadow stared at it.

Not long after, it was followed by three panting—were they humans? Shadow looked at them in surprise. How could there be humans? Was he back on Earth? It couldn't be… he had never seen any sort of creature that looked like the yellow thing during his time on Earth. And yet, here were three humans, about the same age as his human friend Maria had been. The darker-skinned one with the squinty eyes looked like he might be a few years older than the other two, but not much more than that.

The one with the baseball cap reached him first. He was taller than Shadow by a little more than a foot and a half, and Shadow noticed how his black hair stuck out from his hat like spikes.

The boy smiled at him and stood up straight when he had caught his breath. "Hey! I'm glad to see you're up and about!" he said, a little over-enthusiastically. Shadow watched him curiously as his two companions joined his side, but all three stood back a distance from him.

"Don't get too close," the squinty-eyed one whispered to his friends. "Wild Pokémon can be very aggressive."

Shadow stared at him. Wild what? He had no idea what a 'Pokémon' was, but he was pretty sure that he did NOT fall under that category.

He looked down at the little yellow animal. It smiled and waved at him with its stubby hand.

"Pikachu!" it said excitedly.

Shadow raised an eyebrow. 'Peek at you'? Peek at who? Was it some kind of freakish wanna-be stalker thing, shouting 'peek at you' at random strangers?

He looked back at the humans and noticed that the squinty-eyed one had crouched down and was approaching him very slowly, while the girl pulled out some sort of device that said "Species unknown."

Duh, I'm a hedgehog, Shadow thought.

He watched the kid inch towards him, keeping his body abnormally low. What is he doing? Shadow wondered.

The human stopped a few feet from him. "Hi, little guy," he said quietly.

Whoa! Hold up! Little guy?

"My name is Brock," he continued. "These are my friends Ash and Dawn."

The other humans waved upon introduction.

Shadow backed up a step out of pure confusion. Did they think he was some kind of animal? Okay, so technically, he was an animal. But he was an anthromorph, not a pet.

"It's okay. I'm not going to hurt you," the human said.

You couldn't hurt me if you tried, Shadow thought.

"You look like you've been in a fight with something," he said to Shadow.

Do I look that bad? The hedgehog wondered, looking himself over.

He really did look like he had been in a fight. Dirt and bruises from his impact with the ground covered him from head to toe, and his wrists were badly burned and bleeding.

Oh no! The Rings!

Shadow stared at his wrists in shock, realizing for the first time what their emptiness meant. Without the Rings, he had no way of conserving his energy. Using any of the Chaos power would exhaust him immediately.

I can't believe I was so stupid! he scolded himself. How could I have allowed myself to fall for Eggman's trick?

The one that identified himself as Brock reached out for Shadow's hand. Shadow withdrew instinctively, not wanting any physical contact involving hands and men.

"It's okay," Brock said, pulling a roll of gauze out of his back pocket.

Who does that?

"Why don't you let me take a look at that?" The strange human reached for his hand again. "I waited to do this until you were feeling better. It's always better to let your wounds get some air before you bandage them."

Shadow hesitated, but decided to let him. This human seemed nice enough, and it was obvious that he only wanted to help. Though what exactly he thought he was helping, Shadow was unsure of.

Brock turned his hand over gently, examining the burns left from the Rings. He pulled a little spray bottle out of his other pocket.

"This may sting a little bit…" he said and sprayed a small squirt on Shadow's wrist.

Instant pain shot into his burn, and in an automatic reflex, his fist balled and shot outwards, connecting with Brock's jaw and sending him flying backwards across the field. He landed with a loud thump right in front of the trees which they had emerged from. Ash and Dawn ran over to help him.

Oops, Shadow thought. He looked down. The stalker mouse looked angry.

"Pika! Pika pi! Pikachu, pika pi pi!" it shouted at him.

Shadow blinked at it. "You have to pee?" he asked it. The humans were too far away to hear.

It tilted his head at him and blinked confusedly, then ran over to the boy with the hat, who was helping the other boy to his feet with the girl named Dawn. It started screaming its stalker language at Ash, trying to communicate what Shadow guessed as its need to go relieve itself.

Shadow shrugged and picked up the gauze that Brock had dropped upon impact. He sat down on the ground and began wrapping his own wrist. He couldn't figure out why Brock wanted to do it for him; he was perfectly capable of taking care of himself.

When he had finished his right wrist and began working on his left, he sensed someone leaning over him. He looked up into the face of the one named Ash, who was staring at him with an expression of amazement.

"Brock…Dawn…You guys have to see this," he called over his shoulder, never taking his eyes off of Shadow.

In a few seconds, the other two humans stood with Ash, staring down at Shadow.

Shadow looked up at them, his regular scowl reappearing on his face for the first time since meeting them. They backed off immediately and Shadow finished nursing his wounds.

When he was done, he stood up and tossed the remaining bandage back to Brock. He turned and began walking across the field and away from the humans and their stalker pet. He had spent enough time with these people, and it was time to move on and see if he could find any of the others.

"Hey!" he heard the female human call after him. "Where are you going?"

He turned and looked at the girl with hair that was really close to being blue.

She smiled kindly at him. "Why don't you stay with us for a little while? At least until you're back to full health."

He blinked at her, shook his head, and kept walking. The little yellow thing ran after him. It stopped directly in front of him, forcing him to stop.

"Pika, pikachu. Pika pi, pi, pikachu." It smiled.

Shadow stared at it. "You do realize that I have no idea what you're saying, right?" he said to it.

It looked shocked, then turned and ran back to Ash.

Shadow rolled his eyes and kept walking. Ten seconds later, the thing was back.

"Pikachu!" it shouted, pointing frantically to the humans. "Pika, pika pi, pikachu, pika!"

Shadow tried to ignore it and kept walking. It blocked his way again.

"Pi-ka-chu!" it said slowly, first pointing to Shadow, then to Ash.

Shadow looked back at the humans, who seemed to be waiting expectantly for something to happen. He felt the creature tap his leg and looked back down at it.

It met his gaze evenly. "Pika, pika pi," it said in a whisper.

"I don't understand you! Speak English!" Shadow said to it, too far away to be heard by the humans.

The animal looked agitated. Shadow stepped past it, but it got in front of him again. "PIKACHU!" it screamed and grabbed onto Shadow's foot.

"Get off me!" Shadow hissed and tried to shake it off gently, but the creature held tight. Shadow shook harder, then harder, then as hard as he could to get the thing off of his foot.

It worked.

The stalker animal lost its grip on his foot and flew through the air, clearing twenty, thirty, forty feet of field and still going.

"PPPPIIIIKKKKAAAACCCCHHHHUUUU!" it screamed as it flew further and further away.

Oops.