Chapter 4: The Fastest vs. The Ultimate
Sonic gestures his right pointer finger at the sky covering metallic aircraft above him, exclaiming in a loud enough tone of voice so the nefarious Dr. Eggman could hear him "Looks like you didn't lose any bluster since I last saw you Eggman! So what's this rocking hunk of metal you are dragging around with you today?!"
"I'm glad you asked Sonic!" Dr. Eggman says with a jovial exclamation of enthusiasm. One could just imagine the smile on his arrogant face as he spoke from behind the microphone before he went on to explain "Allow me to express a great deal of pride in what you see above you. This is by far my finest creation since the Death Egg Mk. II! This, my dear yet loathsome hedgehog arch nemesis, is the GREAT EGG CONTINENT!"
The amount of bravado tossed into Eggman's proclamation of his aircraft's name echoes across the landscape, causing Sonic to cock an anticipating smile as he looks up at the ship and says to the good ol' doctor "Thinking large and in charge there aren't we Eggman?! Ok, I won't disappoint you then! I'll speed through your continent of Badniks and Egg Pawns and be back on the ground before the Chili Dog stands close!"
"Hohoho, you won't find it to be that easy this time Sonic! In fact, I'm so certain in my victory this time that I will say right here and now that you will only be seeing the underside of my magnificent Great Egg Continent!" Eggman boasts with a jolly laugh preceding his mighty claim.
Sonic rolls his eyes, having heard the good doctor's boasts so many times by now that a couple repeat through his head as he holds his hands on both sides of his mouth and exclaims up towards the ship "OH YEAH?! AND WHY IS THAT EGGMAN?!" The blue hedgehog's words were meant to humor his nemesis, but the response he got was not one he expected.
"I don't know Sonic, why don't you ask one of your old companions that very question? He should be dropping in rather shortly." The moment Eggman said those cryptic words, Sonic and Riku both looked up at the underside of the Egg Continent, where the unnatural smile on the insignia begins to slide open in both directions with an egg-shaped capsule with a complex mechanical design dropping out of it almost instantly after it opens.
The capsule is rapidly propelled towards the ground by rockets on the bottom while Sonic looks on with one eyebrow raised in an anticipated manner while Riku thinks to himself "What did Eggman mean by 'old companion'?"
"…Be careful Riku, something isn't right up in that so-called 'doctor's' ship." The black dragon Takashi mentally projects to the teenage Overlord from the blank realm he is in, and Riku nods his head and replies with "Thanks for the heads-up, but I'll worry about that once we get there. I might need your help to take that ship down later though."
"Just let me know." The black dragon states with a tone of honesty, and with their conversation at an end Riku watches as the capsule crashes into the grassy plains and cracks apart into four pieces, with the rockets flying off in random directions as a plume of dark-green dust is released across the ground.
Sonic taps his feet back and forth across the ground as he stands in place, pumping his fists in an anticipating manner in spite of Eggman's earlier comments as the dust dissipates along the ground harmlessly and a shadowed figure starts to come into view covered by a purple, foggy hue around the head area.
The blue blur flinches in surprise as he quickly recognizes the denizen of the capsule. It was a black hedgehog with red stripes on the back of the quills and red-white bands with a golden ring around the center of each one near his wrists and ankles. He wore gloves much like Sonic did, but his shoes were a little more advanced with small rocket jets at the bottom. The hedgehog looked at a little dazed as it stood in the center of the capsule's plates, with the way his eyelids were positioned over his red eyes making him look something like a zombie.
Sonic reacted with a look of utter shock on his face as he exclaimed "What?!" and pulled his body back, his hands held out beside him before he position himself back upright and says to the black hedgehog "Shadow?! What are you doing here? And why are you helping Eggman?"
The black hedgehog doesn't give an answer as he slowly lifts his head up and looks over at Sonic. Riku felt something odd about the purple fog that was surrounding Shadow's head, but it seems he wasn't alone about that. The blue hedgehog looks directly at the fog and says to the black hedgehog "Shadow, what is with that purple fog? I know I've seen that somewhere before…"
Shadow looks over at Sonic and puts on a light scowl, letting out a quiet growl in turn. Sonic then speaks to the black hedgehog in a joking tone, saying to him "Come on Shadow, I know you love the 'lone wolf' act but you usually don't ignore me for this long."
The teenage Overlord's eyelids twitch as he becomes aware of something coming from the black hedgehog. A dark sensation, one filled with hatred and anger towards Sonic. In fact, it seemed as though he intended to kill Sonic if given a chance. But Riku didn't need to point this out, for as the Egg Continent slowly began to depart Dr. Eggman stated over the radio "Shadow! Recognize Trigger Code: 'Protect Maria'!"
At the command of the doctor, Shadow's eyelids suddenly creak open and a furious intent pushes itself through his body. Letting out an angered roar, the black hedgehog clenches his fists tightly and exclaims towards Sonic in a deep, snarling voice "Sonic…TAKE YOUR HANDS OFF OF MARIA NOW!"
"Sayonara, SONIC THE HEDGEHOG!" With that final arrogant proclamation meant to taunt Sonic's current condition, Eggman shuts off his microphone and turns up the power of the rockets on the back of his Egg Continent to increase the rate of which he travels through the sky.
On the ground, Sonic exclaims in a bewildered tone of voice "Maria? Shadow, have you lost your min-" but before he can finish his sentence with only one letter remaining Shadow activates the rockets on his shoes and dashes forward with a great deal of urgency, thrusting his right fist in an arced upward punch towards the bottom of the blue blur's chin.
Sonic back flips out of the way at high speeds, avoiding the punch in the nick of time and landing on the ground behind Riku. The blue blur states "Sheesh Shadow, we already did this dance recently, but this time you're out for my head? Ok then, bring it on!"
The blue hedgehog wastes no time in kicking off the ground and zipping around Riku to head towards Shadow, curling himself into a ball mid-charge to try and collide with the black hedgehog. However Shadow holds both of his hands in front of his body and catches the spinning hedgehog with his incredible strength, even though the quiet grunt coming from him suggested that he had to put up a little effort to hold Sonic back.
Shadow's body is pushed through the ground, tearing up both dirt and grass beneath his feet as he resists Sonic's spin dash long enough for the hedgehog's momentum to decrease. Having been pushed past the fragments of the egg-shaped capsule, Shadow roars and lifts Sonic high into the air, clasping his fingers tightly around his curled state to prevent him from escaping.
"To think I ever trusted you, blue hedgehog!" Shadow exclaims as he swings his arms downward and slams Sonic against the ground with enough force to crack the ground with the impact. However, now that the blue blur was freed from Shadow's grasp he quickly pushed himself out of his ball-like state and landed upright on the ground, crossing his arms just in time to block a straight-for-the-heart kick from the black hedgehog. Shadow spins his extended foot away from Sonic's arms and puts it back on the ground while positioning his right hand beside his body and scowling at the blue blur as he says "If you lay another hand on her Sonic, I will kill you where you stand!"
The blue hedgehog bluntly responds with "Shadow, Maria isn't here. How could she, she's gone." But these poorly chosen words only incited Shadow to further degrees of rage as his eyes flared wide and he charged straight at Sonic once more, holding his right hand behind his body while putting his left arm forward to check his opponent right in the gut. But Sonic zips to the left to dodge the attack, forcing the black hedgehog to activate the jets on his shoes in order to prevent himself from falling atop the ground.
As Shadow did this Sonic took notice of his right hand, which glowed a bright, sparking yellow. Recognizing the attack the black hedgehog was about to perform, the blue blur tightened his muscles and held his body forward, kicking the front of his right shoe against the ground a couple times and cocking a taunting smile towards Shadow. However, as the black hedgehog swung his hand towards Sonic and unleashed from the yellow light a series of miniature spears in anger Riku quickly dashed between both hedgehogs and used his double-helix bladed sword to quickly cut down the spears as Sonic budged an inch ready to break into a sprint.
Shadow then froze up as the boy appeared in front of him, his dazed eyes stuttering in shock as he lowers his aggression and stumbles back a couple inches. As Riku raises his eyelids in bewilderment and lets out a quiet "Huh?" Sonic stands upright and says to the boy "Geez, did you have to cut in Riku? I had this under control."
The teenage Overlord replies back with a glance over his left shoulder "…Sorry, I thought you weren't ready for Shadow's attack."
Sonic smiles and gesture outward with his right hand as he says "Heh, of course not, I know every trick in Shadow's book."
Nodding his head to show a little faith towards what Sonic had to say, Riku then turns back towards the black hedgehog, who after a moment more of freezing in place lets out a quiet stutter of "M-Maria…What are you doing?"
Riku notes the confusion and sadness in Shadow's voice, but the fact that the black hedgehog recognized him as his long-departed friend despite the obvious differences in appearance caused the boy to quietly note as he slants his sword diagonally to the left and glares towards Shadow "Whatever that purple fog is, its warping Shadow's perception of reality…But I swear I've seen it before."
As Riku and Sonic pause for a moment, we can see things from Shadow's perspective. With a purple haze surrounding his vision, the black hedgehog sees himself on a space station in a room that gives a perfect view of the blue Earth below. Standing in front of him with her right arm crossed in a concerned matter against her chest is a human girl with average-length blonde hair and pure blue eyes. She had a long skirt of white and a sleek blue shirt on. Standing behind her was Sonic, who in contrast to what was happening had a very wicked smirk on his face and shadows above his eyelids.
"Shadow…Please stop it…This isn't right." The girl says in a distorted yet very innocent sounding tone of voice. Shadow responds with a bewildered sounding "M-Maria…What are you saying?"
Sonic sneers at the black hedgehog, saying to him in an overly cocky tone of voice "She's saying she doesn't care for you anymore Shadow. She wants to be with me now! I'll give her the freedom to live on the Earth, something you could NEVER do for her even in a million years!"
"Sonic, you'd dare take Maria away from me?!" Shadow says in an exclamation of raw anger towards the blue blur as he stands behind the human girl and smirks arrogantly with his arms folded in front of his chest.
"I don't see why I shouldn't. Face it Shadow, how can you relate to her anyways? After all, you're an ALIEN." The false words spoken by this Sonic resonate within Shadow's head, causing him to tightly clench his fists as his aggression begins to return.
"Face it Shadow, you can't do anything-" "-Shadow, hey Shadow! You coming back to your senses there?" With a seamless transition from Shadow's point of view to reality, we find Sonic gesturing towards the black hedgehog, who has stood absolutely still this entire time.
The blue hedgehog shrugs while Riku keeps up his defensive stance, which was a good move seeing how the battle was just about to begin anew. With a snap of his fingers, Shadow exclaims towards the blue blur "CHAOS CONTROL!"
In an instant, both time and space warp around the black hedgehog, making him vanish out of sight and causing Riku to flinch in a panic seeing as he no longer was able to get a peg on where Shadow was. Sonic on the other hand is forced to become more aware of his surroundings by Shadow's sudden move, which ended with him reappearing beside the blue blur and attempting to kick him in the side of his head.
The attack connects, sending Sonic spiraling away from where he once stood. The hedgehog smacks against the ground a few times in rapid succession before he regains his composure and lands on his feet, skidding along the ground and looking forward with an overjoyed smile on his face now that Shadow was back in the fight, even if it was still puzzling as to why he was even attacking in the first place.
Shadow lands on the ground and takes a couple unflinching steps forward with his hands extended out on both sides of his body. Creating distorted yellow lights in each palm, the black hedgehog leaps into the air and collides them together to create a static field of energy from which he is able to fire multiple spears at Sonic while hovering in mid-air with his shoes. Sonic wastes little time in sprinting forth, zipping left and right across the ground to dodge the spears flying at him until he's close enough to Shadow to leap at him.
Curling up into a ball mid-flight, Sonic dives right through Shadow's yellow energy orb and hits him square in the hands. The blow applies enough force that the black hedgehog is knocked out of his hovering stance and sent towards the ground. The recoil from the attack allows Sonic to fly backwards and land on the ground in a standing pose while Shadow lies on his back. The blue hedgehog kicks his right foot against the ground and readies his fists, saying to the black hedgehog "I'm going to eventually knock SOME sense back into you Shadow."
Shadow pushes himself back onto his feet and glares at Sonic, saying to him angrily as a scowl still crosses his face "Shut UP. I won't let you lay another hand on Maria!"
Sonic places his foot against the ground and smirks at Shadow, saying to him "Fine then, lets kick it up a notch, shall we?"
As the black hedgehog snaps his fingers and Sonic concentrates deeply on an unknown force, both figures exclaim the words "CHAOS CONTROL!" at the exact same time and vanish in a near instance afterwards.
With both hedgehogs now fighting outside the boundaries of time and space via the effects of Chaos Control, Riku can only tell what was going on from the distance thanks to the bursts of energy coming from the sky around him that signified a collision of attacks between both forces. A rapid string of bursts going in a downward slope signifies a series of kicks, and a larger burst signifies a strong clash between both forces.
Riku wanted to get involved with the battle, but without a single clue as to where Sonic was positioned he couldn't launch a single attack. Thus the teenage Overlord holds his sword at the side of his body and waits for a chance to strike.
From the view point of the blue hedgehog at that very moment, he was currently in the middle of the air with everything around him going slower than normal. He was diving at Shadow with his right foot out, but the black hedgehog puts up his arms to guard the attack. As Sonic leaps back from the recoil of the kick Shadow holds his right arm beside him and creates a large spear of yellow energy that he quickly tosses at the blue hedgehog while he was incapable of swerving away.
"Whoa!" Sonic exclaims in surprise as he quickly leans his head back and watches as the tip of the spear grazes the bottom of his chin. The blue hedgehog then pushes the weight of his feet upward to spin around and position himself downward so he could land on the ground with ease. But the blue blur zips forward immediately after landing and goes into a slide kick along the grass, his foot making contact and allowing him to trip Shadow up and force the black hedgehog onto his face.
Sonic then slams his right hand against the ground to kill his remaining momentum, performing a tough break dance maneuver that allows him to flip back onto his feet. While Shadow was knocked on the ground, the blue blur glances behind him and sees Riku slowly moving in place. As he was briefly distracted by making sure that there was no collateral damage to his new acquaintance, Shadow got back up and turned to face him with his right glove glowing bright with yellow energy.
"Don't you turn your back on me, Sonic!" Shadow exclaims as he holds his right hand beside his head and swings it outright, tossing a bombardment of spears in a wide spread in an attempt to force Sonic to take one hit. The blue blur focuses back on his opponent and quickly leaps backwards over a couple of the fast-moving spears, landing on the ground immediately afterwards and flinching as he notices where a couple of the spears were heading.
Quickly zipping backwards towards Riku, Sonic breaks his concentration on the force that allows him to perform Chaos Control and returns into view at the same time as Shadow. The teenage Overlord catches the spears coming at him, but with how close they were at the moment not even with his quick reflexes would he be able to deal with them. Sonic, knowing nothing about the teenage Overlord's durability, curls into a ball and leaps up, ramming right into Riku to knock him out of the way of the attack.
Shadow once again freezes in shock, but this time his hand wobbles in place as he stares in disbelief where Riku once stood. "M-Maria?" He states in a tone of disbelieving sadness. Once again we see things from the black hedgehog's point of view, and he sees Maria pushed to the ground by Sonic. The blue blur gets on his feet and arrogantly smirks at Shadow, saying to him in a cocky tone "Look at what you allowed Shadow. You tried to harm Maria because you can't accept that she doesn't want you anymore. Give it a rest you alien freak."
As the black hedgehog scowls at Sonic in reality, the blue blur extends his hand and helps Riku onto his feet, saying in a quickly spoken yet apologetic tone "Sorry about the roughness, couldn't risk getting hit."
The teenage Overlord states in a thankful tone "Its my fault for not being able to keep up with your actions…But shouldn't you be focusing on Shadow instead of apologizing?"
Sonic gestures with his thumb towards the black hedgehog and says in a casual tone "Eh, he's having another episode, we're fine for now."
"SONIC!" A more gentle yet concerned sounding voice echoes through the sky via a mega phone, and both heroes look up to see Tails flying above in a red bi-plane of his own creation with the aforementioned mega phone in his right hand. The yellow fox, with his plane on auto-pilot for the time being, stands up in the cockpit of his plane and jabs down at Shadow, exclaiming to Sonic through the mega phone "Shadow's under Eggman's control!"
The blue blur replies to Tails with a sarcastic "Ummm…Yeah Tails! We kind of already figured that out!"
Shaking his head with an annoyed sigh, Tails goes on to mention "No Sonic, you don't understand! Shadow's being controlled by Nega Hyper-go-on energy!"
Sonic scratches the side of his head while Riku reacts with surprised realization, and the blue hedgehog says "Ummm…Nega hyper-whatzit now?" in a forgetful sounding tone of voice.
"Remember when Eggman built that amusement park and captured those Wisps and transforming them into those horrifying creatures?!" Tails exclaims after momentarily slapping the front of his face and sighing.
Sonic then snaps his fingers and looks up at Tails, saying to him "Oh yeah! What about it?!"
"Don't you recall that he used a strange purple energy on me to try and get me to fight you?" Tails says afterwards, and with quick thinking the blue blur picks up what his friend his trying to say and states "Oh yeah, that weird shining energy with the squiggly beam design. Huh, now that I think about it I'm surprised Egghead never used that on you again afterwards."
The yellow fox bluntly responds with "Sonic, now isn't the time to worry about that! Shadow has to be controlled by that Nega Hyper-go-on energy!"
Sonic then snaps his fingers in annoyance and looks towards Shadow, saying to himself "Darn it, good ol' Egghead must have whipped up a new formula to make that energy last longer."
With a slight hint of distraught on the blue blur's face before he whips out a coy smile and swings his right hand out towards the still motionless black hedgehog, Sonic blurts out "Guess I have no choice then Shadow. I'll free you from Eggman's control by knocking you unconscious!"
The black hedgehog's eyes could not be seen at that moment as his head hung low and the purple fog started to gain a faint yellow glow to it for some odd reason. From Shadow's point of view, he hears a GUN Soldier in the distance saying "Freeze, all of you! Don't move or I'll shoot!" The cocking of a gun could be heard coming from the soldier, and the person he was pointing towards was obvious.
"No…This isn't going to happen again…" Shadow mumbles to himself as the rings on his bands let out a brief glow and begin to pop off one after the other. Riku suddenly detects a massive spike in the black hedgehog's power and quickly readies his sword, putting on an all too serious expression as Shadow tightly clenches his fists and rises up into the air thanks to a powerful capsule of untamed yellow energy that pushes outward around his body.
"Huh?! Shadow's pulling this out on us?!" Sonic exclaims in a completely unnerved tone of shock in his voice as he widens his eyes and looks at Shadow, keeping his feet as planted into the ground as possible as the pressure exuding from the black hedgehog threatens to push him back.
The teenage Overlord takes a glance over at Sonic and quickly thought to himself "I didn't think Shadow would go this far…If Sonic's worrying, then he probably doesn't have the Chaos Emeralds on him…"
Walking in front of the blue blur calmly, Riku draws his sword towards Shadow much to Sonic's surprise and says "Stand back Sonic, I'll handle Shadow."
Sonic, in the midst of his surprise, nonetheless kept his cocky attitude up and said to the boy "Heh, you sure you can handle this?"
Riku turns and gives him a light smile, saying in a nonchalant tone of voice "All I have to do is knock him unconscious right? Just give me a minute or two, that's usually how long your fights last after all…"
The teenage Overlord turns to face the angered Shadow as the energy exuding around him now emerges in timed waves, and with a quick draw of his sword in front of his body the boy launches a tornado of wind towards the black hedgehog.
Before Shadow could land and attack, the tornado wraps around his body and keeps him and energy trapped inside. Riku then dashes across the ground and flips around after getting underneath the rising tornado, leaping into the air with his sword drawn high as he coats it in a non-lethal veil of ice and attempts to slash down upon Shadow. But with a clench of his fists the black hedgehog bursts out of the tornado and then immediately activates Chaos Control to warp behind the boy.
Thinking quickly to himself as he turns around "I guess he doesn't see me as Maria anymore…" Riku meets Shadow's aggressive mid-air karate chop with his ice covered sword, only to be surprised as the ice shatters apart in an instant. But with the black hedgehog stuck in place thanks to his attack the teenage Overlord quickly dispels his sword and takes his left hand forward, summoning a ball of fire in the palm and slamming it against Shadow's body.
With the energy barrier keeping Shadow protected diluting most of the damage from the attack, the black hedgehog is launched back through the air, where he lands against the ground back first with his chest fur smoking a bit. Riku wastes no time in summoning forth four fortified stalagmites from the ground around Shadow to keep him trapped inside, but unsurprisingly the energy exuding around the hedgehog atomizes the rocks once he regains consciousness.
But Riku was a little prepared for this as he swung his right pointer finger down to send a bolt of raw electricity at Shadow from the blank sky. Struck with a million volts of electricity, even the black hedgehog felt a lot of pain running through his body as he widened his eyes and screamed in agony. But from his point of view, he saw something far different than what was actually happening as usual.
The pain distorted his vision of the world, making him see him strapped to a table as he was electrocuted mercilessly. And the one who was responsible? Maria herself, who wore an all-too innocent smile on her face that made the ordeal all the more painful for Shadow. But it was at this point that the black hedgehog began to suspect that something was up. "No…No…Maria would never do this…This isn't real…"
The purple fog surrounding Shadow's head begins to fade away as he starts to realize that what was happening before him was fake, and with it the yellow energy surrounding him also starts to die out. Noticing this, Riku lets up on his lightning attack and smiles triumphantly. With smoke covering Shadow's body thanks to his last attack, Riku has to edge closer to check and see that he didn't harm the black hedgehog too much. As he approaches however he senses another worrying spike of power coming from Shadow and a reddish glow emerging from within the smoke.
Shadow begins to walk out of the smoke, a pale red veil covering his entire body as his eyes have gone white and a scowl has crossed his face. He looked up towards and states in an absolutely furious tone of voice "I am Shadow the Hedgehog! I may have put the past behind me, but that doesn't give ANYONE the right to try and use it against me for their own nefarious ends! For your attempt to control my mind with those horrifically realistic visions, I will personally show you JUST WHO I AM!"
The black hedgehog warps in front of Riku with Chaos Control and immediately tosses out a hard-hitting punch with all of his anger poured into it. The teenage Overlord takes the blow directly into the side of his face, which manages to crack a couple of bones his mouth as he is also pushed back along the air. Hovering forward with his jet shoes, Shadow rapidly throws blow after blow against the teenage Overlord, battering his body around in mid-air for a good couple seconds before rising up and combining his hands together and striking the boy hard enough to launch him diagonally into the ground.
The impact doesn't hurt as much as the combined pain brought on by the punches, but Riku was still feeling rather battered as he stared up at Shadow's glowing red body and noticed as the black hedgehog swung his right hand in front of his body and the entire grassy plain began to quake. But as Shadow started off the name of his attack with an exclamation of "CHAOS-" Sonic quickly dashed in-between the black hedgehog and Riku's fallen body, which causes Shadow to take pause for a moment in confusion.
"Out of the way!" Shadow exclaims as his only warning to the blue hedgehog, but Sonic stands defiantly in front of his recovered ally and bluntly says to him "Chill out Shadow! You aren't being controlled anymore!"
Shadow goes on to say "I'm well aware of that, but now I am going to kill the one who helped the doctor put me in this state!"
Sonic exclaims to Shadow in confusion "What?! Riku here helped break you free from Egghead's control, he's not your enemy Shadow! Now get a grip before you blow this whole area sky high!"
Shadow pauses for a moment and looks down at both Sonic and the fallen boy, noticing that the boy in particular isn't putting up a resistance despite his current condition. After considering the situation for a few seconds, Shadow slowly lowers his hand and calms down, his body returning back to normal as he descends towards the ground and immediately falls on top of one knee, his right hand going towards his head as he lets out a groan of pain and murmurs to himself "What did the doctor do to me…"
As Riku pulls himself onto his feet now that the battle was done with, Sonic quickly rushed to Shadow's aid and said in his usual happy-go-lucky voice "Glad to have you back to normal Shadow."
The blue hedgehog then extended his hand out to try and help him up, but with an annoyed glance towards Sonic's way Shadow takes his other hand and brushes his help off before rising to his feet in spite of the pain in his head. The black hedgehog then grimaces and says to Sonic "…I don't usually say this, but its good to know you're the real Sonic."
"Heh, well of course Shadow, there's always only going to be one real Sonic out there." The blue hedgehog jokingly states as he wags his right pointer finger in mid-air and smiles.
Shadow shakes his head as the pain continues to simmer down, and he proceeds to mention to the blue hedgehog "…Whatever the doctor did to me, it made me believe that you were putting Maria in danger. I know she's long gone…But what I saw and heard felt far too real for me to even begin doubting what I was seeing."
Riku walks over near the end of Shadow's sentence and says to him "You were being controlled by Eggman's Nega Hyper-go-on energy compound…Going by what Tails and Sonic were saying, he must have modified the compound so you'd turn against Sonic without a single bit of doubt."
The black hedgehog looks up at the human boy and says in a puzzled tone of voice "…And just who are you?"
Riku pauses for a moment before flinching and realizing that he hadn't actually introduced himself to Shadow yet. Folding his arms against his chest, the teenage Overlord says "My name is Riku. As much as I'd like to get further into who I am, we probably should go deal with Eggman now, right Sonic?"
As Riku turns towards the blue hedgehog at the end of his inquiry, Sonic snaps his fingers and says enthusiastically while Tails descends in his bi-plane beside him "Yeah! I don't know what Eggman's up to this time, but if he's using some weird mind control mojo then we need to stop him before he can use it again!"
The yellow fox says to his blue friend "Then hop aboard you two. With how slow Eggman's hunk of metal is going, we should be able to catch up with it faster than you can 'untrimmed nose hair'!"
Sonic leaps onto the left wing of Tails' bi-plane without hesitation, but Riku kindly says to the fox "Don't worry about me, I can fly up there on my own."
As the teenage Overlord kicks off the ground and hovers in the air waiting for the bi-plane to take off, Shadow quickly interjects and says to all three heroes "Hold on there. I'm coming with you."
Sonic looks over at Shadow and says to him in a taunting manner "You sure you can handle this Shadow? We did rough you up pretty well."
The black hedgehog jumps on the right wing of the bi-plane without hesitation and turns his head towards Sonic, saying to him as he folds his arms in front of his body "I need to find out just why the doctor went this far. I will be just fine."
The blue hedgehog nods his head and then gestures towards Tails, saying to him quickly "Alright buddy, lets go crack some egg!"
With the engines already ready to go, Tails sends the bi-plane flying into the air while Riku follows close behind. At the slow rate the Egg Continent was going, it wasn't going to take very long for the heroes to catch up with it and confront Dr. Eggman…
Next Time: Tougher than Leather