Tails and Knuckles were walking side by side in the Village Center telling each other stupid jokes. "Here's a good one." The echidna turned to his fox friend. "A horse walks into a bar. The bartender yells, "Hey, no animals in here!"

Suddenly Knuckles goes flying into a wall before either could see what hit him. Tails ran over, "Knuckles! What happened?!" The kit asked dumbfounded.

"If I had to guess, I'd say I was knocked into a wall!" The echidna told him, disoriented.

Shadow appears next to them suddenly, oh yeah, I forgot he could teleport. "Correction. Pummeled into a wall."

Tails looked at him, "Shadow! What are you doing here?"

"Fox hunting." The hybrid said menacingly before running to the kit, who dodged him by flying in the air. But Shadow appears behind him, grabbing him by his tails and flinging him into a well.

Eggman looks down at all of them on his Eggmobile and glares at his Spy Bots. "I'm gonna need a three-camera set up, and a fourth giving me an overhead view. Move, move, move!" And the bots get in position as Knuckles steps back up to Shadow.

"Good thing I took that Shadow Boxing class." He said right before he charged at the hybrid, who disappeared to dodge him and then reappeared to counterpunch. That goes on for a while until Tails flies out of the well, wrench in hand.

"Don't worry Knox, I got 'em." And he flies up behind Shadow as Knuckles goes in for another punch. Shadow disappears again causing Knuckles to accidentally punch Tails instead, sending him crashing into a fence as the echidna gasps at his mistake. Shadow takes that as his chance to appear behind Knuckles, ramming him down.

Eggman flies down eating popcorn. "Oh man, my video games going to be so epic!"

Shadow lands back down next to an injured Knuckles. "That was almost too easy."

"Well, it ain't over yet!" Sticks yelled as she and Amy ran over.

"Eat hammer, punk!" Amy yells as the two charge Shadow. The hybrid sidesteps Sticks as the badger strikes, grabbing the other end of her staff, spins, flinging her away. She lands on her back, rolls, and skids on her heels. Amy slams her hammer down to throw Shadow off balance, but the hybrid just leaps into the air to avoid it. He charges the pink hedgehog with a flying kick but Amy spins away to dodge it.

"That all you got?!" Shadow spits at her.

"We're just getting started!" Amy yelled, determined.

Eggman clapped from where he sat in his Eggmobile. "Ooh. That would make for some great cutscene dialogue."

Both girls come at Shadow from both sides but the hybrid teleports away again. The two stop and look around for them, Shadow reappears behind them, grabs the two girls, leaps into the air with them, and then flings them both down to the ground.

Amy looks like she's about to pass out but manages to turn on her communicator. "Sonic. Help!" She faints just as Sonic arrives.

The blue hedgehog looks around. Sticks is trying badly to hold herself up with her staff. Amy is unconscious. Knuckles is barely standing. And Tails is trying and failing to stand on his feet.

"About time you showed up, slowpoke." His rival taunts him.

"Shadow! What have you done?!" But Shadow is already charging at him, sending him crashing through palm trees and into a stone wall.

The hybrid smirks at him, Sonic has a stone-cold expression on.

Sonic tries to keep a stone-cold expression on him as the hybrid moves closer, smirking. "What are you going to do? Kill me?"

"No." Shadows' smile widens, which is disturbing because he never smiles. "I'm going to kill your friends. One by one. And you are going to watch."

"What?!" Sonic tried to get up, but Shadow had pinned him to the wall. He felt himself fade for a second before he was back where his injured friends lay. Shadow threw the injured Sonic to the ground, stepping on his chest.

"Don't you touch them!"

Shadow tilted his head, "Actually, I think I will. Now, who should I start with?" He looked around at the rest of the team before stopping at the kit who was still trying to get up and help Sonic. "Ah, there we go." He walked over and grabbed Tails by the throat, holding him high up in the air and bringing him in front of Sonic. "Who better to start with than your supposed best friend."

Sonic started breathing heavily, watching helplessly the kit weakly struggle to pull Shadow's hand up from around his throat. "Shadow. Please. He's just a kid."

"That's what makes this so fun." His rival smirked at him. "You know what's also fun to think about? None of this would have happened had you never met him. You ruined him Sonic. And now I'm going to ruin you." He started squeezing at Tails' throat, Sonic struggled to get up to help but his feet weren't cooperating.

Shadow loosened his grip for a second and looked at the kit. "Any last words?" Tails gasped then let out a weak, "S-sonic- " Sonic's heart shattered into a million pieces. Please buddy you'll be okay; you'll be okay, please.

Then the hybrid was tightening his grip again before the kit could finish his last words. "Say goodnight, fox boy."

Sonic couldn't breathe. He was panicking. No wait he couldn't panic. He had to help Tails he had to-

Crack.

"Tails!"

It felt like the whole world had shifted. The teammates stared mouths agape. No one had expected him to go through with it.

Even Shadow seemed surprised at himself as he let Tails' limp body fall onto the ground in front of him. Sonic stared at the kit he had just lost. He was so small. So stiff.

His attention turned back to Shadow who had a horrified expression on his face, ears pushed down. "Sonic I- "

But Sonic was already getting up, powered by nothing but adrenaline. Adrenaline he wished had kicked in sooner. He launched himself at Shadow. Hitting, kicking, biting, anything he could do to hurt the monster in front of him.

He took his mouth out of Shadow's arm and glared him in the eyes. "What would Maria think of you now?" He looked at the hybrid's shocked expression before he felt himself being pushed down onto the hard ground. Darkness clouded his vision.

—————

When Sonic woke up, he was lying down on the beach. He doesn't remember going here. Maybe Shadow teleported him there for some reason? Or he blacked out while running away?

He stood up, body not hurting anymore. In fact, he felt as if he wasn't ever thrown into a wall at all. Wow, that's the fastest recovery he's made in his life. Then again, he was the fastest thing alive.

Oh well, there will be time to think about that later. For now, he's got to kill Shadow.

—————

Sonic sped around looking. If he just kept moving maybe the grief won't consume him just yet. After all, he's only had one shot at this.

This thought of killing his rival was thrown out the window. He wouldn't resort to his level. Despite how tempting. No, Shadow was immortal. And Sonic was going to do whatever he could to make sure he thought for eternity about the child he killed with his bare hands until the day the sun finally blew up. He would have to spend that time knowing that he was no better than the G.U.N Agents who raided his old home and killed Maria.

He was going to suffer.

Sonic made his way to the cave Shadow regularly spent his time in for some unknown reason. He stepped inside, and there, eating a bucket of coffee beans with a spoon, was his rival, seemingly unaffected by what had transpired earlier today.

Shadow swallowed some beans and looked at him. "What do you want, hedgehog?"

"You know exactly why I'm here, faker." Sonic spat, not even trying to hide his anger. Shadow raised an eyebrow, right before he tumbled back as his rival struck him. "Have you lost your mind!?" Sonic smiled then ran out of the cave into the grass, pausing to make sure Shadow was following him.

Then he took a breath, he only had one shot at this, he couldn't mess it up. "You're as bad as Maria's killer." The hybrid's eyes widened from where he stood at the cave's entrance, and then he sped after Sonic as he ran, seemingly forgetting all about his teleportation abilities. "Get the fuck over here!"

The blue hedgehog smirked as he ran into the forest, his eyes darted around until he found it, he had marked the spot with an x in the dirt. He stood right on it.

Shadow tackled his rival, pinning him down and punching him. Sonic rolled over trying to restrain him. That went on for a while until Shadow rolled again to get Sonic off him, only to feel the earth give out beneath him. He felt himself fall to a concrete floor. He looked around. The walls were way too high for him to jump, he reached into his quills for his emerald but it wasn't there.

"Looking for this?" Sonic smirked from where he stood over the hole, holding up the red stone.

"How the hell did you- "

"Took it in our tussle. You really should be more careful with it faker. Wouldn't want it to go into the wrong hands." Sonic was grinning ear to ear now.

"Why the fuck are you doing this?!" Shadow screamed up at him from where he was crouching on the floor.

Sonic's glaze darkened. "You know perfectly well what you've done. Now I know you'll have fun spending eternity in there. I'll make sure of it." He smiled before pressing something, electric red bars suddenly covered his only exit.

"When I get out of here, I'm going to kill you hedgehog!"

Sonic ignored him as he walked away, proud of himself.

—————

Sonic walked into town thinking about how he'd honor his promise to his immortal prisoner. He'd have kids. Yeah. And he'd teach his kids how to guard Shadow's prison bunker. Then they'll teach his grandkids, and they'll teach-

He was pulled out of his thoughts as he bumped into someone.

"Sonic!" His pink friend scolded. "Will you watch where you're going- Wait…is that Shadow's Chaos Emerald?"

"Yep." Sonic smiled at her, smug.

"How and why do you have that?"

"I took it in our scuffle. Wouldn't want him getting out of the bunker."

"You put him in the bunker?" He and Tails had only told her about it, in case anything happened. But none of them ever thought they'd need to use it. Shadow was dangerous but he was also reclusive.

"Sure did." He was mighty proud of himself.

"For what?" She asked as if the events of about an hour ago never transpired.

Sonic clenched his fists, stomping his foot in frustration. "For what he did to Tails!"

She blinked, "What?! What did he do to Tails?!"

"Snapped his neck! You know Amy! You were there!" His pink friend took a few steps back from him. Why did she look so scared?

"Sonic…I just spoke to Tails five minutes ago."