2:00 p.m.
Sonic runs over to the train station, where he could've sworn he saw Eggman dragging Elise into a train. What the hedgehog doesn't know is that Shadow is here too, also going after Eggman.
He sees Shadow at the front desk, talking to a middle-aged man with a full-grown mustache. Sonic walks over to the desk and asks the man, "Did you see Eggman with the princess in this area?"
The man turns to Sonic and says, "Sorry kid, but this young lad right here asked the same thing. And I'm afraid I haven't seen a man with the princess."
"Aw man!" Sonic cries.
Shadow then says to the 12-year-old, "It seems you're after Eggman as well."
"Because he kidnapped the princess again!" Sonic yells. "For the third time this weekend!"
"Technically, it's Monday," says Shadow. "and I already heard about the kidnapping. Rouge told me about it over the phone."
"So why are you after Eggman, anyways?" Sonic asks him.
"I need to get some information about Mephiles," answers Shadow. He then notices Sonic's confused expression. The black hedgehog sighs and says, "It's a long story."
"Yeah," says Sonic. "Anyways, I need to catch up with Eggman. Elise needs me!"
Sonic runs ahead, and Shadow sighs and sits on a bench. Some bikers arrive in their motorcycles as one of the bikers gets up and says, "I need to use the bathroom."
The one biker runs into the small building, and the others follow. Shadow looks over to the motorcycles, wondering if he should use one of them. After all, his feet hurt from walking long distances, and he's still too young to drive a car (let alone have a driver's permit).
After thinking, Shadow hops on one of the motorbikes and rides off with it. The bikers come back and notice that Shadow stole one of the bikes. "Hey, that's my bike!" one of them screams.
Meanwhile...
In Eggman's train, Elise is sitting at a table, eating some toast and tea. She doesn't know why Eggman is taking her away in a train of all things, but she does have one guess: to get away from Sonic, the one person she needs the most. She hopes Sonic is on her way to save her.
Robot comes in and asks Elise, "Enjoying your food, princess?"
"Not really," answers the 17-year-old human. "Are you and that mad man making me anorexic?"
"Princess," Robot starts. "When the Flames of Disaster gets released, we'll all die either way."
This guy cannot be serious. That's okay; she'll ask for some more food. It always works with her servants; so it'd better work on Robot. She takes a deep breath and asks him, "Do you have any food leftover that I can have?"
"Yes," answers Robot. "But unfortunately, the doctor got first dibs on the chicken salad from last night's dinner."
Oh come on! "So my kidnapper gets to eat last night's dinner, but all I get is toast?!" Elise hollers. "That's not fair!"
"Life isn't fair," says Robot. "Look on the bright side: at least he's eating healthy."
True...but this still isn't fair. Why in this day in age do the innocent people get tortured for no reason, but the bad guys get rewarded doing their horrible deeds? That just doesn't make any sense to Elise.
The princess takes a deep breath and says, "I'll finish eating my toast."
"Good girl," Robot says as he leaves the room.
2:15 p.m.
Eggman is sitting at the front seat of the train. The overweight scientist is taking the princess away in the train because taking her in his Egg Carrier would be too obvious for Sonic to find. He doesn't know where he'll take Elise, but he hopes it's somewhere far and away from that pesky middle-schooler!
Robot comes in and says, "Hello doctor!"
"Hello Robot," Eggman says, eyes locked on the railroad tracks. "How's the princess behaving back there?"
"Horrible!" Robot starts complaining. "She thinks it's not fair that she isn't eating much."
"The princess sounds pretty selfish," adds Eggman. "Couldn't she see I'm on a diet?"
"Exactly!" Robot agrees. "We need to do something about her behavior."
Robot leaves the room as Eggman focuses on the railroad.
Sonic and Shadow are outside the moving train; Sonic running, and Shadow riding the motorcycle. Sonic looks over to his older ally and hollers, "Hey Shadow! Do you have any idea how we'll stop this train?!"
Shadow looks up and wonders if he can jump on top of the train. He then hollers back to Sonic, "I think so! You run ahead and find a dead end for the train! I'll hop onto the train and use Chaos Blast!"
"Okay!" Sonic screams, giving Shadow a thumbs up as the former runs off.
Shadow takes a deep breath, and leaps off of the motorcycle and onto the train. The motorcycle crashes into a big rock, causing it to fall apart. That's alright; all Shadow needs to do is use Chaos Blast at the right time.
And by the right time, he means right now, as the train is about to go under a bridge! Shadow takes out his green Chaos Emerald and shouts out, "Chaos...Blast!"
The blast makes a hole in the train, as Shadow falls into it. As he enters the train, he notices a tall female human (which Shadow can assume is the princess), looking scared. Shadow says to the girl, "Don't worry, I'm here to see Eggman."
"Okay," the princess says as Shadow leaves the room.
As Eggman is still controlling the train, Shadow uses his Chaos Blast to open the door. Eggman jumps in fear and screams, "Damn it, Sonic! You always foil my plans!"
He turns around and sees that it was Shadow who opened the door; not Sonic. Eggman calms down and says, "Oh, hi Shadow. You had to make a hole in my train! You couldn't just turn the doorknob?!"
"First of all, I'm too cool to open a door normally," says Shadow. "And second of all, I'm here to get some answers out of you. Now tell me: who's Mephiles, and why are you trying to capture him?"
Eggman sighs and says, "If you want to learn more about Mephiles, you should find him yourself."
The villain stands up and turns his body away from Shadow. The ladder scratches his chin and thinks for a little bit. Didn't he already find Mephiles in the future? Is Eggman that lazy to find Mephiles himself? Oh right; he's too busy taking the princess away from Soleanna!
"I will give you a hint," Eggman begins. "It's all linked to the Soleanna Disaster ten years ago."
Ten years ago? Shadow does remember looking through Tails' printed papers of Soleanna. One part told about Solaris and its two halves: the strength being Iblis, and the mind being Mephiles. So Eggman's also doing research on the Solaris Project...
"The Solaris Project," Shadow finally says.
"Indeed," Eggman responds. "When you capture Mephiles-"
Eggman is interrupted when the train hits a boulder. He sighs and says to Shadow, "Hold that thought."
He looks over the big window on the front of the train and sees that it's in front of a boulder.
"What happened?" Shadow asks him.
And just like that, Eggman throws a tantrum and screams, "The train crashed into a stupid rock! I paid $900 for this train!"
Robot frantically comes in and shouts to Eggman, "Doctor, you're not going to believe this!"
"Ugh, what NOW?!" Eggman groans.
"The princess is missing," Robot answers.
Of course! Sonic must have saved her from the crash. It's so obvious! Eggman tells Robot, "Keep an eye on Shadow! I'll go fetch my Egg Mobile!"
The fat man walks out of the room.
Meanwhile...
This mission was so easy for Sonic! All he had to do was crash the train, which was already given to him since a boulder was conveniently placed on the railroad, and get Elise out of Eggman's hair (which is ironic since Eggman doesn't have any hair in the first place)!
Right now he's outside the train, carrying Elise and running away from the situation. Elise is really happy to see Sonic. No more plain toast or Eggman's greed, she's just glad to see the blue hedgehog.
"I knew you'd return!" Elise cries (no tears involved, of course). "You had to!"
Sonic rolls his eyes at that comment and replies, "Yeah, yeah. Let's just hurry to Soleanna so Eggman won't kidnap you for the fourth time."
"You don't have to be so rude..." Elise says to herself, hurt by the 12-year-old's comment.
A greenish psychic spear flies towards Sonic, which he does dodge. As Sonic puts Elise down, he notices that Silver is in front of them. Seriously, was it necessary to attack the blue boy again?!
"You again?" Sonic says to Silver. "You know, it's bad enough you threw my friend out of a window, but was attacking me again needed?"
Silver scoffs and screams to the hedgehog, "This time, there will be no more interruptions! The Iblis Trigger...must die!"
Elise kneels down to Sonic's level and whispers to him, "Let's just get out of here. I don't want to be here."
Sonic ignores the princess's advice and says, "No way! I can't turn down a fight. Now just stand back while I attack this moron!"
However, before Sonic gets a chance to attack Silver, the ladder uses a psychokinetic blast, knocking Sonic onto the grassy ground. Silver then traps Sonic in some kind of psychic shield to prevent him from escaping. As Elise is watching this, she backs away in fear, clasping her hands together.
"So how was your little walk, princess?" a voice asks from a distance.
To keep the repetitiveness going, Dr. Eggman's Egg Mobile grabs the screaming Elise and they fly off.
"Elise!" Sonic screams, seeing Elise fly away with Eggman.
"Don't even think about it!" Silver shouts as he holds Sonic harder in the psychic force.
The Egg Mobile flies over to Shadow and Robot, who are on top of a hill, and Eggman says to his sidekick, "Come on, Robot! We're going to Mexico!"
"Ole!" Robot cries out as he jumps onto the Egg Mobile, which takes off.
Shadow skates over to the area Eggman previously was, and he sees a white hedgehog holding Sonic in some kind of force field! Should Shadow do something? Even though he doesn't know enough about Sonic's story, he is very much aware that Sonic needs to rescue the princess.
"It's time to end this!" Silver screams, and just when he comes close to finishing off Sonic, a black hedgehog jumps out of nowhere in front of him!
No! Silver was so close to killing Sonic, and now this?! This is getting old! Silver shouts to the oldest hedgehog, "Mephiles! Why are getting in my way?! You're the one who wants me to kill this guy!"
The hedgehog gets up and introduces himself. "I'm Shadow, you idiot," he says. "Not Mephiles!"
Since Sonic broke free from Silver's force field (you can thank Shadow for that), he runs off hollering to Shadow, "Make sure you give that Silver guy a good beating!"
Shadow nods to Sonic as he and Silver prepare to fight.
And that was Chapter 14! As I promised, this chapter was shorter than the previous one. In the next chapter, Shadow and Silver go back in time, and Sonic rescues Elise yet again and takes her out on another 'get together.' (Yeah, I know; this story is repetitive, but you know what? So is the game itself!)
Anyways, make sure you give a good review to this story, and I'll see you in the next chapter!
