The moon hung suspended like a shattered pearl, its severed southern hemisphere still clinging to the main body as though by a loose marionette string. Chunks of the celestial body floated lackadaisically in the weak gravitational pull of Earth's natural satellite. Its brilliant glow lit Shadow's way as he soared around the perimeter of the canyon. It bathed his surroundings in a hazy, velvet blue.
He skated along the edge of the plateau, hunting for an access point to the hovering ship.
There— a cliff jutted out into a precarious point over a section of the desert basin. If he built up enough speed, he could reach his destination.
He blasted away in as straight a line as he could manage from his target, gaining hundreds of feet of elevation in seconds as he raced into the wooded border of the northern rim. Stopping abruptly a full minute from his starting point, Shadow turned back towards the way he came. He was out of sight of the ship now but was confident of its direction.
He took a deep breath. He stooped, tips of his gloved fingers brushing against the cool dirt of the forest floor, bracing his back foot on a boulder. He closed his eyes, envisioning his goal in his mind.
With a final, clipped exhale, he looked ahead and took off, the boulder cracking into halves from the power of his propulsion.
He dashed between spruce-firs and pinyon pines, leaving behind a wake of trees stripped bare of their bark and a flurry of leaves and pine needles. His teeth clenched, arms pumping in rhythm with his gaining momentum. His last few strides provided quick glimpses of his changing environment: the forest, the plateau, the cliff overhang—
Shadow shot off the edge of the rock, its incline giving him enough lift to ascend over the ship. He adjusted his trajectory in the brief interval before the Earth's gravity claimed him from his flight, and once certain of his landing spot, curled in on himself and spin-dashed towards the comet.
He shredded through the rocky exterior, blasting through the hull before diving out of his spin and catching his footing on the ship's deck. He rapidly took note of the interior.
The inside of the ship matched the exterior – gray rock; wriggling tentacles protruding from random splotches of purple matter; smoky mist coating the air, scentless but thick. It was freezing, enough so that when he exhaled, a plume of visible air left him.
During his scan, a marking to his left caught his eye.
Shadow turned toward the towering wall in question, made instantly uneasy by a distant sense of familiarity.
A symbol. It had distinct curves in its tribal design. Four sharp spines protruded from the top curve, two from the bottom. At the center, a simple swirl. Some kind of identifier? But for what? Or who?
Shadow's ears flicked back as shouting caught his attention. He froze, catching his hand centimeters before it contacted the embossed wall. He didn't even remember lifting his arm.
He faced the source of the noise. Three alien brutes sprinted from around the corner, each sporting enormous bazooka-like weapons in their brawny arms. They chattered indignantly as they spotted Shadow and the new, gaping hole in their ship.
They were tall, far taller than any human Shadow had ever encountered. They had no discernable mouths on their elongated faces yet seemed to be conversing as they turned to one another and jabbered in clicks and grunts. Their massive, amber eyes reflected the light as they turned, revealing them to be compound like an arthropod's: constructed of thousands of tiny, hexagonal lenses. Their bug-like appearance ended at their countenances. Their solid, muscular builds denoted warriors, with fists almost the size of their heads. They stood on raptor-like feet with three pointed talons.
"What are you doing on this planet?" Shadow demanded.
The trio's chattering ceased, seeming to have reached a conclusion. They raised their bulky cannons at the hedgehog.
Crack. The air snapped as Shadow teleported back and forth rapidly between the guards, each new position revealing a fleeting but advantageous glimpse of his targets' weaknesses, while simultaneously disorienting them.
His assault began with the final teleport. He spun forward, crashing into his first victim's chest and sending the alien flying back. It crashed into a far wall, groaning as it slid to the floor. The force of the collision left a deep indent in the comet.
The remaining two bellowed with confusion and fury, struggling to anticipate the hedgehog's next move and accurately aim. Shadow materialized behind the second goon with a crackle of energy, slamming the creature into the ground with enough force to instantaneously immobilize it. He looked over his shoulder at the third and final adversary. Its weapon shook in its frightened grip, meekly barking out some order in its indecipherable language. Shadow sneered disdainfully.
Like a bolt of lightning preceding a deep thunderclap, the hedgehog zipped back and slammed a kick into its abdomen, making it double over with a howl. With an answering growl, Shadow slammed a knee into its fleshy jaw. It went spiraling back, skidding to a dead stop several hundred yards away.
Shadow stalked forward, looming over it with a menacing glare. He grabbed it by its collar and dragged its torso off the ground.
"What are you? What are you doing here?" he demanded.
It sputtered pathetically, then raised a gnarled claw and pointed down the passageway that the group had come from. Shadow raised a brow, following the action with his eyes. He dropped the alien with a disgusted shove as it fell unconscious, then took off down the opposite hallway from where it had gestured. The wall engraved with the mysterious symbol glowed imposingly as he passed.
Shadow's eyes darted to and fro as he glided through the dark, winding corridor, staying on high alert as he explored deeper into the comet. Whatever these things were and wherever they came from, if the friendliness of the crew was any indication, they weren't here with good intentions.
"What a fortuitous discovery."
Shadow skidded to a halt, hunting for the source of the deep, raspy voice that suddenly surrounded him. His red eyes searched hastily around the area, unable to locate its presence.
"I can sense your sorrow; your guilt; your pain," the unknown entity spat, "These have made you weak. But there is time to fix that."
"Come out here, and I'll show you just how weak I am," Shadow snarled, clenching and raising his fists, "Stop playing games."
"S-Shadow?"
He gasped. He took in his surroundings seemingly for the first time, the reality he knew melting away. Dark rock walls gave way to enforced steel. The violet, cloudy haze permeating the comet dissipated, the clear air now flashing orange from emergency lights. The uneasy silence within the ship was replaced with a blaring alarm.
And the voice—
"Shadow, is that you?" Maria whispered, peering out from behind an overturned table.
Shadow froze, dubious. But the longer he stared into those scared blue eyes, the more certain he was of who was staring back at him. His chest began to heave as panic seeped in. No, this was impossible. This isn't how it happened. They had been in her room, in her pillow fort, when the Professor had fetched them. This wasn't— She couldn't be—
"What's going on?" she whimpered, taking a cautious step out from behind the table and reaching to clasp his hand. The rest of his doubt dissolved when her warm palm found his.
Before Shadow could respond, Professor Gerald rounded the corner, nearly tripping over himself. He was disheveled and frantic, his bushy white moustache unkempt and frayed.
"Kids! We have to go! Now!" he cried, diving forward and taking Maria's hand, running with both his charges in tow.
Shadow struggled to catch his breath, the white tuft of fur on his chest rising and falling rapidly as his horror began to overwhelm him. As he fell into step with the pair, he turned to look over his shoulder. Familiar shouting, like a record repeating in his head, sounded from the hallway he and Maria had skated down hundreds of times.
This part was excruciatingly detailed.
The deafening crash of a dozen pairs of steel-toed boots was like a cacophonous tidal wave waiting to submerge his family.
They entered the storage facility where the experimental chaos energy the scientists had been developing was kept.
The first gun-toting soldier rushed into view, raising his weapon.
The shot rang out. It collided with one of the energy containers, setting off a series of deadly explosions—
He shut his eyes as the heat of the blast consumed him, desperately willing the memory to end.
Hadn't he relived this moment enough?
Shadow shook uncontrollably, choking on air as he clutched the ground for purchase.
"I can force you to relive your worst nightmares over and over again. But I have bigger plans for you, Shadow."
He was back in the comet, collapsed to his knees in a similar nondescript corridor, but one different to where the memory had overtaken him. The voice returned, mocking and hateful like a vengeful god's:
"Your potential is noteworthy, despite your glaring weaknesses. You could be my greatest creation."
"Who are you?" Shadow croaked.
Out of the darkness, a purple, starfish-like organism floated forward, swimming through the air like a jellyfish. Its only limbs were six tentacles. At the center of its small, squishy mass, a single, black iris met the hedgehog's startled gaze, set in a sickly yellowish-red pupil. It twirled in place, tentacles undulating.
Shadow curled his lip in disgust. "How do you know my name?" he demanded.
"In time," it spoke, "But if such a simple illusion has incapacitated you this easily, you are not ready for the truth."
"Truth?"
"The truth Gerald Robotnik so astutely hid from his compatriots."
"What does the Professor have to do with this?"
A jarring, arrhythmic laugh consumed the space. Shadow's confusion and subsiding grief began to transform. Soon, it was fury that made him shake. His hackles raised and quills quivered. Power sparked from his glimmering eyes. With a ferocious yell, he struck out. The eyeball easily spun out of reach, but Shadow followed adamantly behind. He pursued the monster with a whirlwind of kicks and punches, and though it dodged each attack, Shadow was getting faster and closer.
"I can give you the power and the opportunity to save her."
Shadow recoiled as though he'd been physically struck. His attacks ceased. He stared in disbelief, processing the eye's pledge.
"I can give you another chance, Shadow," the entity leered, "To correct your failure."
"Whatever you did – the illusion, as you called it – isn't real. I'm not foolish enough to believe such drivel," Shadow snapped back, temper boiling. His fur bristled, snout scrunching and glare darkening.
"You would sacrifice the possibility? Let her stay dead? Did you even care for the girl?"
Shadow teleported in front of the eye, roundhouse kicking it savagely into the ground. He pinned it by two of its squirming tentacles, releasing a flurry of punches into its body, each blow growing more powerful than the last. His innate Chaos energy surged, and he raised his fist to deliver the final blow.
The creature blinked out of existence. Shadow fell hard to the floor. He snarled gutturally and punched the ground in frustration.
"Show yourself!" he roared.
"You will be my greatest creation," it mused. It reappeared above him, uninjured from the brutal barrage. Shadow only glowered, gauging the distance he would have to leap to reengage his foe.
"Deliver me the seven Chaos Emeralds and you can save your friend," the disembodied voice explained.
"Do not disappoint her," it added.
Shadow felt a recognizable pull, a contraction of his limbs. Before he could stop it, he was teleported violently off the ship.
He appeared outside the belly of the spacecraft, sent with unexpected velocity back to Earth. He sailed uncontrollably to the canyon's basin floor. He fought to regain control, but the ground was rushing up to meet him too quickly and he was spinning too wildly, the world around him a dizzying blur. All he could do was brace for impact.
His crash back to Earth sent a concussive shockwave flowing through the valley. His head bounced off one of the scattered rocks and his body went limp.
He tried to lift his head, but his vision swam, and he weakly dropped back to the ground. The doubt – the hope – the creature had effectively instilled was already creeping forth as he succumbed to unconsciousness:
Maybe it wasn't too late to save her.