Author's note: This chapter was inspired by the opening scene to issue #1 of the Sonic Universe comic series, published by Archie Comics. In that story, Shadow is battling Metal Sonic.

The battle is an epic one because it managed to do a crossover between the three Archie Comics Sonic series at the time: the main Sonic the Hedgehog series (see issue #196), the spinoff Sonic X series (see issue #40), and finally the spinoff Sonic Universe series (issue #1). At the time, Archie Comics was ending their Sonic X series and replacing it with Sonic Universe, and what better way to accomplish this transition than to do an epic crossover of all three!

I thought the comics did an interesting reversal of how Shadow is normally portrayed: it is actually Shadow who is the protagonist/voice of reason in the comics. Shadow is more typically portrayed as an anti-hero/voice of aggression. I find what Sonic Universe did to be awesome because it made Shadow's character that much more multidimensional and fascinating. Alas, in this story, I had to reverse the reversal: Sonic is kind of like Shadow in the Sonic Universe story, and Shadow is kind of like Metal Sonic.

"Sh-Shadow!" said Eggman, trying to feign obliviousness. "You survived! Good to see you."

"Shadow, how long were you standing there?" asked Sonic.

"I heard enough," said Shadow, whose expression was so overcome with anger that it made even Sonic nervous. His voice was soft, but shaking, as if he was barely holding back his anger. "You're working with Doctor Eggman to hide something from me. I want to know what it is."

Realization suddenly dawned in Sonic's eyes. Shadow must have followed him to Eggman's fortress. "Wait, no, Shadow, this isn't what it looks like!"

Shadow snapped. His eyes widened, and he clenched his fists. "Oh?" Shadow screamed. "I think this is exactly what it looks like!"

In the blink of an eye and with one smooth stroke, Shadow brought his fist back and hammered it into Sonic, who flew back and hit the window of the command center, cracking the glass.

"Well, heh heh, I think that's my cue to leave!" said Eggman. "Sorry Sonic, my old friend, you're on your own here!"

Eggman pressed a button on his control console, causing his entire seat to lift off from the floor of the command center. Controlling his flight with a yoke that appeared in the center of the seat, he quickly flew through the window that Sonic cracked, thus shattering it completely. Sonic stared for a moment as Eggman flew off into the distance, then turned to look back at the troubled Shadow, who was quickly advancing for another attack.

Sonic's eyes widened, and with his sharp reflexes, he dodged Shadow's second blow.

"Tell me what you know!" Shadow screamed.

"I've already told you everything!" said Sonic.

"ARGGH!"

Shadow reared back and then ran full sprint toward Sonic, who jumped backwards out of the open window that Eggman had created. In a heartbeat, Shadow jumped out too, in pursuit of his blue counterpart. The fortress was some ten stories high, but Sonic and Shadow were both extremely quick-witted and strong, despite their size, so they easily managed to break their falls and land on their feet onto the ground below. By now, the rain had stopped and some of the dark clouds had already dissipated, making way for the bright sun to illuminate the land around them.

"Shadow, I don't want to fight you," said Sonic.

Shadow snarled, then began another charge. Sonic dodged by jumping into the air, and then curled himself into a ball, spinning toward Shadow and striking him off his feet. The blow knocked Shadow back several feet, while Sonic's spin attack ended into the ground. When Sonic uncurled himself and looked up to see how much damage he had done, his eyes instead met the bottom of Shadow's shoes.

Shadow's kick sent Sonic flying backwards several dozen feet. Sonic gritted his teeth as pain coursed through the side of his cheek where Shadow had struck him. Quickly returning to his feet, he entered a ready stance. Shadow had already begun his next attack maneuver.

Shadow was running in a wide circle around Sonic at about five revolutions per second. There was no way that Sonic could run out of the circle without colliding into Shadow. Gradually, Shadow began to spiral in toward Sonic, decreasing the area of the circle that Sonic had to move. Sonic thought quickly—if he couldn't run out of the circle, he'd have to jump up and away from the circle. As Shadow's spiral got closer and closer, Sonic, with all his leg strength, jumped high up into the air.

From his vantage point, he could see Shadow still spinning in his spiral. He swiftly got a sense of how fast Shadow was moving, then curled himself into a ball, spinning himself in a direct collision course with Shadow, his sharp quills engaged.

Shadow, on the other hand, predicted this and deliberately slowed his circular motion once he saw Sonic spin into a ball, causing Sonic to mistime his collision and crash into the ground instead. Shadow then jumped into the air himself and spun himself into a similar ball, aiming directly for Sonic.

Upon realizing that he had missed, Sonic immediately ended his spin and tried to gauge where his adversary was. In a split second, Sonic noticed the airborne Shadow and decided to counterattack by jumping and spinning into his own ball back at Shadow. The two spinning hedgehogs collided in midair and deflected each other. Sonic flew upwards into the air away from Shadow, while Shadow was deflected towards the ground away from Sonic.

When Shadow hit the ground, he looked into the air, gauged where Sonic would land from his fall, and ran towards it, aiming to intercept Sonic. Sonic anticipated this, and he broke off his spin as soon as he felt his counterattack was successful. He then twisted his body, allowing himself to determine a good spot to land. When he saw Shadow waiting to intercept him, he quickly spun into a ball again. Shadow, noticing this, grabbed a highly thick tree branch nearby and used it to bat Sonic as if he were a baseball.

Surprised by the unexpected blow, Sonic ended his spin and dug his heels into the ground when he landed, coming to a stop several hundred feet from Shadow. Looking up, he saw Shadow sprinting toward him.

"Can't we talk about this?" said Sonic.

When this did nothing to deter Shadow's advance, Sonic sighed and broke into a run away from Shadow. After about a minute of acceleration, the two hedgehogs reached supersonic speeds, Shadow in extremely close pursuit of Sonic.

The open field they were in quickly turned into a forest, where the densely packed trees posed obstacles to their high speed chase. Sonic, however, had years of experience navigating quickly through the forest, so while he no longer ran supersonically, it was still considerably faster than any other living entity on the planet—that is, except for the very entity now pursuing him.

Sonic then got an idea. As he ran left and right, dodging various trees, he tried to find one that was easily climbable. Noticing one such tree, he ran towards the tree and climbed to the top in a matter of seconds. Shadow did not anticipate this, and he overshot the tree by several hundred feet. Shadow screamed in frustration and dug his heels into the ground, trying quickly to reverse direction, but Sonic had already began to move again. Instead of running along the ground, the blue hedgehog was now jumping from tree branch to tree branch in the dense canopy of the forest.

Due to the leaves, Shadow could not easily see from the forest floor where Sonic was, but he could still hear the sound of his movements. Following the sound toward a moderately climbable tree, he quickly shimmied up the branch into the canopy, where he resumed his pursuit of Sonic.

This guy just doesn't give up… thought Sonic.

Jumping from branch to branch, he saw a problem up ahead: there was a significant gap between one branch to the next.

There was a large river separating them.

Sonic felt panic rising within him as he realized water would be entering the terrain. He bit his lip and thought to himself, It's okay, just jump over the water! Besides, you can swim now! You can swim! But it was no use. As Sonic neared the last branch before the river, he panicked and let himself fall back toward the forest floor, landing a few inches from the riverbank. After landing, he took off in a sprint following the river downstream.

Shadow, for his part, smirked. He didn't know that Sonic was afraid of water, but he did notice that at the speeds they were going, they could have easily jumped over the river, so he wondered why Sonic didn't do it.

While following the river, Sonic and Shadow eventually reached the forest's edge, which gave way to a grassier, though much more hilly terrain. As soon as they reached this new area, Sonic felt a familiar warm feeling rise within him. Shadow must have noticed it too, because he gasped and deliberately slowed his pursuit.

Out of the corner of his eye, Sonic thought he saw something above him that didn't mesh well with the grassy terrain around him. Sure enough, when he looked in that direction, he saw a familiar sight.

It was the workshop of his oldest friend, Tails, which consisted of a garage and a runway for the X Tornado, decked out with palm trees to emulate the runway back in Station Square. Once he saw the workshop, Sonic figured out immediately what the familiar feeling was.

Chaos.

Since defeating the Metarex, Sonic and his friends had had the benefit of holding onto all seven Chaos emeralds. Though Eggman had tried to steal them from time to time, up to now he had never succeeded even once. The emeralds were stored in a secure compartment on the bridge of the Blue Typhoon, which was located in an underground chamber beneath Tails' workshop.

Since Shadow was essentially hardwired to utilize the power of Chaos energy, he must have recognized immediately what the feeling was and slowed his pursuit to try to find the emeralds. Sonic had to get to them before Shadow did or risk Shadow bringing a swift end to their battle. Sonic looked back to check where his pursuer was, and to his surprise, Shadow was nowhere in sight. Sonic checked in all directions, but it appeared that Shadow had temporarily disengaged, possibly to find the Chaos emeralds on his own and use them to defeat Sonic.

Sonic had an advantage, however, because he knew exactly where the Chaos emeralds were.

Sonic run upwards toward Tails' workshop and entered through the garage, where Tails was as busy as he always was: making tweaks to his X Tornado.

"Hi, Sonic!" greeted Tails happily.

"No time, ol' pal. I need the Chaos emeralds!"

At this, Tails jumped up and dropped the tools he was holding. His twin tails flitted back and forth in distress. "What for? Are we under attack?"

But Sonic had already descended into the chamber that held the Blue Typhoon. Tails, who had to deal with this kind of situation before—when the Metarex first attacked the planet—followed Sonic nervously.

Shadow felt the presence of Chaos energy well before Sonic did, so he slowed down to try to determine where it was emanating from. If he could get his hands on a Chaos emerald – a virtually endless source of energy – that would allow him to incapacitate Sonic instantly. Unfortunately, it was difficult to get a good sense of where the Chaos emeralds were, just that they existed somewhere nearby.

Shadow watched as Sonic sped off into the distance and disappeared behind a tall hill. Shadow thought that Sonic had probably not detected the Chaos energy himself.

Shadow slowed to a stop, closed his eyes, and concentrated, trying to determine which direction to go. Normally, Doctor Eggman had an electronic detector that he could use to help him isolate the location of the energy signature, but at the moment, he had to rely on pure instinct.

Wherever the emerald – or emeralds – was, it didn't seem to be moving. Shadow took a few steps in one direction. He felt no change in the feeling. Shadow then took a step in a different direction. Still no change. Shadow frowned, then turned around and ran in the opposite direction. This time, however, the feeling grew subtly stronger. With a dark smile, Shadow burst into a sprint.

For a while, the feeling of nearby Chaos energy intensified, but after a point, it started to lessen. Upon realizing this, Shadow grinded his feet into the ground in order to reverse directions and backtrack. He went back to the point where the energy was at its peak, and after looking around for a second, he spotted a small building decorated with palm trees in the front yard high up along the side of one of the hills.

As Shadow approached the structure, however, he heard the sound of a plane's engine coming from inside the building. As it took off, he recognized the aircraft as the X Tornado, the personal jet of Sonic's fox friend – the one with two tails. Tails! That was what everyone called him.

Initially, he thought that Sonic might be trying to escape by flying away with Tails, but when he turned back to face Tails' workshop, those thoughts were immediately dispelled.

There was Sonic the Hedgehog, standing before him with a calm expression on his face. He was no longer in a fighting stance.

"Shadow, please just let me explain," said Sonic. "I went to Eggman because I wanted to know why he saved you. I wanted to know more about what he knows about you. I didn't go to him to work with him – trust me, I think there would have to be some threat of the galaxy getting taken over for you to get me to work with him."

Shadow scowled and clenched his fist. "Liar!" he screamed.

Sonic's hopeful expression dropped into one of disappointment. "Shadow, I know you've gotta be super confused right now. Seriously, I don't blame you. I only hope that after we're done here, you can just take some time to think things through."

Shadows eyes widened as Sonic closed his eyes and let his arms fall to his side. Slowly and magically, Shadow saw one, two, three—seven Chaos emeralds appear and form a circle that revolved around Sonic. It was over. Sonic had beaten him to not just one emerald, but all seven of them. Shadow let himself fall to his knees, waiting for Sonic to finish him off. He figured there was no use in counterattacking.

That is, until he saw a brilliant burst of light coming from the blue hedgehog as the emeralds circled him faster and faster. For the second time, Shadow's eyes widened. Sonic had decided to undergo a Super transformation.

It was a mistake.

Shadow had a bit more experience working with Chaos energy than Sonic – it was coded into his instincts – and he knew that during a Super transformation, the Chaos energy leaked all around whoever was using it. The mechanics behind it were complicated, but it essentially had to do with the fact that Chaos energy is "power enriched by the heart". During a Super transformation, Sonic pulled energy not only from his own feelings, but also from the hearts of those around him. This "reaching out" is what causes the Chaos to spill out of the user during a Super transformation.

In the brief moment when Sonic was transforming into Super Sonic, Shadow burst off and charged straight into him. He felt the Chaos energy well up within him, and when his fist landed its blow into Sonic's body, he found that he had successfully siphoned off enough runoff energy from the emeralds to undergo a Super transformation himself.

The Chaos emeralds floated around both hedgehogs now. The previously blue quills that spread all over Sonic's body had turned a brilliant yellow, and so did Shadow's previously black quills, leaving his red quills to stand out among the yellow. Sonic's eyes turned red, and the sharp spines which lined the back of both their heads turned upwards, defying gravity. They were Super Sonic and Super Shadow.

This was clearly not what Sonic intended, and his face betrayed his shock.

Shadow smirked. "You're a fool."

Sonic shrugged, resigning to his new predicament. "Well, I guess now we'll have to go at it in the sky."

Without a moment to lose, Sonic launched into the air, and Shadow closely followed, making sure not to let the distance between them widen too far. If Sonic and Shadow separated far enough in distance, then the seven emeralds would no longer be able to energize both hedgehogs simultaneously. Instead, three or four emeralds would split off to join Sonic, and the rest would go to Shadow; however, since neither would have all seven anymore, they would both lose their Super forms, and at the altitudes they were reaching, falling out of the sky was not exactly an appealing option.

Once Sonic got enough air, he curled himself into a ball and launched a rapid spin attack against Shadow. Shadow counterattacked by spinning into his own ball. They collided and deflected each other, neither causing damage to the other.

In both of the two times that Sonic and Shadow had simultaneously undergone Super transformations, they had been working together against a common threat. In this case, however, they were working against each other.

Shadow summoned some Chaos energy to form a highly charged concentration of energy and launched it at Sonic, screaming, "CHAOS SPEAR!"

Sonic easily dodged the spear and used the momentum from his dodge to launch another spin attack at Shadow. Shadow dodged the attack and used the time to form another spear and launch it at Sonic's spinning body. However, the spear struck Sonic while he was still spinning – the high spin was coupled with strong enough Chaos that spears deflected off Sonic's spinning body, allowing him to uncurl himself without a scratch.

Suddenly, Shadow felt pain in the back of his body, although it quickly healed with the power of Chaos. He turned around and saw the X Tornado retreating quickly. Tails had flown up and fired a laser at Shadow.

But for what purpose? Shadow thought. He knew Tails was highly intelligent, so he would have definitely known a simple laser would be ineffective against Shadow as Super Shadow.

Realization suddenly dawned, and Shadow whipped around, but it was too late. Tails' distraction worked, and Sonic had landed a successful spin attack against Shadow. Pain coursed through his torso as Sonic's rotating body tried to tear at it like a blade. With the bits of Chaos energy he could summon, Shadow grunted in stress as he pushed Sonic away. He then used the remaining Chaos to heal the damage Sonic had caused.

This is going nowhere, Shadow realized frustratedly. They were both equally powerful because they were pulling from the same energy pool. He needed to find a way to change things up and shake the balance.

An idea struck him.

It was an immensely crazy, unbelievably risky plan, but if it worked, it could allow Shadow to surprise Sonic and seize all of the Chaos energy while he was distracted.

Shadow closed his eyes and allowed himself to concentrate. Time began to feel like it moved in slow motion as Sonic advanced toward Shadow. In the short space of time that he had, he felt the presence of a pathway, a deep connection that existed beyond the three regular spatial dimensions. Shadow opened his eyes and watched as Sonic prepared his attack. "CHAOS CONTROL!" Shadow announced.

The world around them disappeared. It was replaced by immensely bright white light emanating from all directions. The only thing else he could see was Sonic, and even him just only barely. They were being whisked across higher dimensions – to a completely different universe.

This is not how I expected this day to turn out, thought Sonic as he felt the familiar sense of Chaos Control around him. When the brightness of the light around him became unbearable, Sonic closed his eyes. After about a minute, the light died down, and when Sonic reopened his eyes, he discovered that they were midair, flying in a new universe on a planet filled with grass and trees. The universe seemed to be devoid of any animal or human life. Even as Sonic and Shadow raced across the sky faster than the speed of sound, the terrain was forever unchanging. It was just grass, grass, some trees, and more grass. This was not a world that they'd want to get stuck in for any amount of time, especially alone.

Sonic looked around and saw Shadow flying above him. Instead of attacking, Shadow burst in flight away from Sonic – trailed closely by the seven Chaos emeralds!

Realizing Shadow's plan to distract him and take the emeralds for himself, Sonic was determined not to let Shadow succeed. He quickly burst off in pursuit. Shadow had already gotten a good head start, and Sonic watched as he closed his eyes, preparing again for Chaos Control. Sonic was not going to let Shadow leave him alone in this universe!

With all of his will, Sonic amped up the speed, and just as Shadow shouted, "CHAOS CONTROL!", Sonic collided with him, sending them both back into the domain of bright, white light in all directions.

Shadow was likely aiming to go back to Sonic's world, but Sonic's collision had caused him to misfire his Chaos Control. As a result, when the whiteness finally dissipated, it revealed a planet without land. The sky was a brilliant blue, and the Sun shone brightly, but where there should have been land was instead replaced by an infinite blue substance. Sonic froze when he realized what it was.

The entire planet was covered with water.

Sonic felt his panic level skyrocket. Fortunately, they were still midair and able to fly because they were still Super, but that didn't stop Sonic from looking at Shadow desperately.

"Please Shadow, stop this. Let's go back home and talk things over. Look, I'm sorry I went to Eggman, okay. Just let me—"

Shadow dove into a ball and spun into Sonic, who was so distracted that he did not even counterattack. As the blow landed, Sonic felt gravity pull him toward the ground. No, not the ground, the water! The water!

When he was on his interstellar mission to fight the Metarex, Sonic and his friends had stumbled across a planet that had also been filled almost completely with water. It was supposed to be dry, but since the Metarex had stolen the planet's "egg", water engulfed the planet's whole surface. At the time, he had all his friends to keep him company, with ships and submarines built by Tails that protected him from the water. At one point, Sonic almost fell into the water with his hands tied behind his back. Fortunately, however, Chris had been there to supply him with special shoes that allowed him to stay and run above the water, almost as if it were land.

Neither Tails nor Chris were here right now. He was alone with Shadow, and the water was quickly approaching. Even though he didn't have Tails' ships and submarines – even though he didn't have Chris's special shoes – Sonic did still have one thing to his advantage.

With all of his will, he set aside his panic and concentrated solely on where Shadow was. "CHAOS CONTROL!" he screamed. This time, it wasn't an interdimensional jump – he merely teleported so that he was directly next to Shadow again.

Shadow, however, had already been going through the motions of setting up another interdimensional Chaos Control. Once Sonic saw him, he grabbed his arm, making physical contact so that he would be certain that he would be taken along for whatever ride Shadow had in store, though it was likely that by touching him, he caused Shadow to lose concentration again and take them to another unintended universe. Before Shadow could react, he had already declared, "CHAOS CONTROL!"

Never before did the whiteness look more comforting to Sonic than it did now.

He quickly relaxed as he let his feelings die down. Sonic realized that his fear of water had probably reached a point that was unhealthy, but at the moment, he tried not to think too much of it. He had bigger issues on his hands.

Sonic wondered why Shadow didn't attack him while they were in the interdimensional whitespace between universes. It was probably because it was so overwhelmingly bright that neither hedgehog could properly see the other. Besides, they weren't sure of the properties of this whitespace. If they moved one step out-of-place, it's possible they could get separated and get whisked to some other universe. Without all the Chaos emeralds together in a single universe, it would be virtually impossible to "hop universes" back home.

After a minute, the whiteness died down again, revealing a universe that caused Sonic to shiver in fear (though perhaps not quite as much as the water-filled one). There was no sky. If one looked upward, all one would see would be darkness. The ground, however, consisted of lava. Glowing red, molten rock that was likely thousands of degrees. The air at their altitude, though still breathable, was nearly unbearable.

"CHAOS SPEAR!" Sonic heard Shadow shout.

Sonic whipped around, saw the spears, and quickly spun them away. He felt the spears against his outer spines, but the energy of the seven Chaos emeralds easy wiped them away. Chaos energy largely neutralizes other Chaos energy, though the behavior of the emeralds can be unpredictable at times—it's called Chaos energy for a reason.

Suddenly, below them a stream of lava exploded from the surface, nearly burning both hedgehogs.

"We gotta get out of here fast!" said Sonic.

Shadow growled and began to fly towards Sonic.

Sonic thought quickly and decided to do something rash. He realized that the universe they were in was highly unstable and would likely kill them within minutes if they did not leave right away. As a result, he felt for the emeralds and prepared to cause Chaos Control and go to whatever universe was most aligned with this one at the moment. It didn't matter which universe they ended up in. Anything could be better than this. Okay, maybe except for the one with water.

Just as Shadow was within inches of Sonic, Sonic declared, "CHAOS CONTROL!"

As soon as the whiteness took over them, Sonic breathed a sigh of relief. It was short-lived, however, as Chaos Control somehow managed not to break the momentum of Shadow's attack towards Sonic, and even in the interdimensional whitespace, Shadow's fist managed to ram itself into Sonic's stomach.

Sonic felt himself fly backwards, and he heard Shadow grunt as he presumably try to follow. Both hedgehogs could barely keep their eyes open due to the brightness.

Sonic grunted, and he thought he caught a glimpse of movement to his right, and impulsively, he curled into a ball and shot himself at the movement. At the moment he struck Shadow, they arrived into the new universe.

"ENOUGH!" Sonic screamed as he uncurled himself, watching Shadow fly backwards from the blow. "Shadow, you and I have fought across five different worlds now. It's time we put our differences aside, or else we're both just going to end up hurting each other. Please trust me, that's what neither of us want. That's not what Maria would want."

Sonic saw Shadow widen his eyes. Then, a cold chill ran through Sonic as he saw Shadow move his right hand toward his left wrist. He was taking off his inhibitor rings.

Thoughts raced through Sonic's mind. What should I do? Shadow wants to go all in on his next attack. He looked around and took stock of this new universe. He and Shadow were still airborne. This was the first universe that seemed to have intelligent life. There were buildings all around them, and about fifty feet below, Sonic could see trees, streetlights, and cars. For some reason, it seemed oddly familiar. Sonic figured it was safe—he supposed he could find someone in the universe that might help him.

Sonic looked toward Shadow, who had let his inhibitor rings fall toward the street below. He knew what he had to do. While Shadow was distracted with planning his attack (he really only had one, maybe two shots, at Sonic before he expended all his energy without his inhibitor rings, so he had to make sure they counted), Sonic closed his eyes and felt for the seven Chaos emeralds around him.

Sonic gulped. The last time he did what he was about to do, he conceded afterwards that it may have been a mistake. It had been against the Metarex, in his very first battle in space as Super Sonic with the Metarex commander Dark Oak. On the other hand, everything turned out okay in the end, so maybe it hadn't been a mistake after all. In any case, he was nervous.

With all of his energy, he summoned all seven Chaos emeralds and gave them a command. Scatter! Sonic thought. One by one, each emerald turned his thoughts into power, and they sped away in varying directions. The red one flew north, the white to south—all seven in opposite directions until they were all gone, spread to the corners of whatever planet they were on.

Sonic looked back up at Shadow, who was staring at him in shock. "You… you fool!" he screamed. The yellow-and-red figure turned around and burst off in flight in the direction of where the red emerald had flown off to. The massive acceleration of his departure created a sonic boom that shattered nearby windows.

Sonic knew that Shadow wouldn't fly far. Without his inhibitor rings, Shadow's body would use up way more energy than he needed, and without the Chaos emeralds, their Super forms would fade away quickly. In fact, Sonic could at the moment feel his own energy diminishing. What mattered most, however, was that now the battle was temporarily paused as both hedgehogs stopped to recuperate and then recover the seven Chaos emeralds.

Sonic looked down. There were picnic tables to the side of one of the streets—one of them was empty. He let his yellow body drift slowly toward the empty picnic table, and as soon as he landed, his Super transformation ended, and his quills returned to their normal blue.

Exhausted, Sonic immediately collapsed onto the table. There was but one last interesting thing he saw before he lost consciousness.

Humans.