(Yeah, I know what you’re thinking. “Where the hell has this moron been?” Sorry everyone. I’ve been getting into Sprite Comics lately, and it seems I’ve been neglecting my author duties. Anyhow, Sonic and friends are off to Angel Island, where Knuckles and Rouge are busy holding off the Black Arms giants. What will happen? I don’t own Sonic, Shadow, the Black Arms or anything)


CHAPTER 4


The Tornado drew closer and closer to Angel Island which was no longer on the horizon, but was merely a few miles from them. Sonic, as usual, was anxious and antsy, but not just because he was eager for action, but because he was worried about his friends’ safety. If they had even a scar on them, Sonic would be serving Black Arms stew for dinner, with a side order of black hedgehog salad. If Rouge and Knuckles got hurt…Shadow was in BIG trouble.
SMACK!
Knuckles went flying as a huge black scaly fist connected with his face, almost making him spit up blood as he flew through the air, and hit the dirt, flat on his back. He scrambled to get back up, only to resort to rolling, as a jagged magenta blade almost came crashing down on him. When he stopped rolling, he looked next to him just in time to see Rouge slam into the ground, looking bruised and shaken from her fight with the other 2 giants. “Rouge!” He sat up and cradled her in his arms. “Rouge, are you ok?”
Rouge didn’t move or answer.
“Rouge! Wake up!” Knuckles gently shook her, but to no avail. When he looked up, he noticed all 4 giants crowding around him. The Master Emerald wasn’t in their possession, but all that seemed like small potatoes now. “Oh crap…” He murmured as he held Rouge close. Suddenly, he could hear the faint echoing of laughter, which seemed to grow louder each second. “Please don’t tell me, that’s who I think it is…”
“Oh come on Knuckles…” The voice began, as a spiky haired form began to materialize in front of him, taking on the shape of a familiar black hedgehog. “Aren’t you glad to see an old friend?”
“Since when did you consider ME, a friend, Shadow?” Knuckles spat at him, never releasing Rouge.
“Such harsh words my dear Knucklehead.” Shadow sneered. “I see your bat girl seems to have had a fainting spell. How princess-like.”
“Wrong dipshit! Your giant goons just smacked her around!” Knuckles growled, pointing a finger at Shadow, trembling with rage.
“My giants?” Shadow pretended to be surprised. “You’re so quick to judge. Is it because they’re black like me, or have red markings like me? OR the fact that they can chaos control like me? Or maybe it’s because they’re as evil and sadistic as me!” He smiled evilly.
“What the hell’s wrong with you Shadow? You never used to be like this! Have you forgotten Maria? The promise you made to her?” Knuckles shot question after question at Shadow.
Shadow just shrugged. “I just woke up and smelled the black mist, that’s all. I’m casting away that worthless memory of that human girl and accepting my TRUE nature, as my destiny to be leader of the Black Arms! With Black Doom gone I can take hold of the Chaos Emeralds and Black Arms, and RULE this planet with an iron hand!” He thrust a fist up to the sky, his eyes glowing evilly as a cruel smile graced his lips.
Knuckles could hardly believe his ears. Shadow was neglecting Maria’s memory? Looks like the Black Arms had seriously messed up both his mind and his heart. The black hedgehog searching for his past no longer stood before Knuckles. All that stood there was the new leader of an Alien Race and a new threat to humanity. “Shadow…you may have the chaos emeralds and you might even take the Master Emerald…but let me tell you something. I won’t let you take it without a fight!” He stood up and banged his fists together. “I’ll protect this island and the emerald, even if it means taking you down!”
Shadow stared at Knuckles for a moment, before snickering. The snickering soon turned into giggling, and then finally a full blown laugh. “HAHAHAHAHAHAHA! That’s SO funny! You think some backwoods bumpkin like you, could defeat me? The Ultimate Life Form?”
“Bumpkin? Bumpkin am I?” Knuckles challenged. “You wanna see what this “Bumpkin” can do?”
“Right, this ought to be good for a laugh.” Shadow retorted.
“After this, I’LL be the one laughing!” Knuckles lunged at Shadow and threw a fist right into the hedgehog’s face, or would have if Shadow had not Chaos Controlled to the side.
“Too slow, Knucklehead.” Shadow jeered.
Howling in anger, Knuckles ran at Shadow, launching a flurry of punches at him.
Shadow merely dodged quicker than Knuckles could punch, all with an eternally bored look on his face. Yawning, he swiftly tripped up Knuckles and watched him fall to the ground. “How pathetic.” He lifted one hand and began to charge up a “chaos spear.”
Before Shadow could fire, Knuckles dug his fists into the ground and rolled onto his back, ripped up a large chunk of earth and threw it in Shadow’s face causing him to lose his focus and stumble backwards. Knuckles got back to his feet immediately and fire out, punching Shadow right across the jaw.
Shadow felt Knuckles’ fist connect with his face and a large splotch of blood stained the green grass near him. He reached a hand up to where Knuckles had hit him. Not only was it bruised, but it was bloody too, as Knuckles ‘claws’ had cut right to the bone, almost scaring Shadow’s face. His eyes narrowed in hatred. “Giants…” He said dangerously. “Go off to the side please… I’d like to speak to the guardian alone…” The giants lumbered off, heeding their master’s request. Shadow fixated his gaze at Knuckles. “You just made a BIG mistake echidna… No one scars my face like that… NO ONE!” Shadow’s eyes shone an angry red, as his fists charged with chaos energy. “You’ll pay! CHAOS SPEAR!”
Knuckles quickly flipped to the side, to avoid an incoming chaos spear coming at him. “Yeow! Can the fireworks! This ain’t the fourth of July!” He threw another chunk of earth at Shadow.
Shadow fired another chaos spear, blasting the chunk to bits, only to reveal Knuckles gliding right at him with both fists forward, and receive both fists right into his face. He felt himself cough up more blood as he stumbled backwards, and felt a few teeth pop out from his jaw, due to the impact. Roaring at Knuckles, he fired a Chaos Spear without warning, blasting Knuckles in the torso and knocking him down into the grass. “Stupid Echidna!” Shadow stalked over to Knuckles’ fallen body. “So stupid… One Chaos Spear easily toppled you…” He kicked Knuckles in the ribs, causing the echidna to yelp. “You’re as pathetic as Rouge…” Shadow then hoisted Knuckles up by the neck and brought him up to his face. “Now I’m just going to be taking your Master Emerald here…” He said to him dangerously. “And then you and the bat girl are going to watch as my troops and I burn this island down to ash!” He said with a demented smile on his face. “It was a pleasure knowing you, Knucklehead…”
“SONIC WIND!”
A small white tornado suddenly blew up from nowhere and knocked shadow off his feet, and away from Knuckles.
“HOMING ATTACK!”
The ambush was followed up by another direct hit as what felt like a spinning body slam hit Shadow right in the back. As he hit the ground, he chuckled slightly. “That attack… I know that attack AND voice…” He picked himself off the ground and turned to the direction of the attack. “So nice to see you, Faker... I could recognize your Sonic Wind and Homing Attack, anywhere.”
Sonic stood protectively over Knuckles, his arms crossed, with a sour look on his face. “Can it with the “Faker” business. It wasn’t amusing or witty the first 44 times!” He spat.
“Oh what’s this? You seem upset?” Shadow said with mock surprise.
“You’re damn right I’m upset!” Sonic bellowed, pointing a finger at Shadow. “It was bad enough you killed off GUN’s commander. But now you’re trying to not only destroy the Floating Island and take the Master Emerald, but also smacking around my friends? Just how low can you go?” Sonic was shaking with rage as he glanced over at Knuckles and Rouge, seeing how badly hurt they were.
“Oh, I can much lower, Sonic. Much lower than you can imagine…” Shadow sneered at Sonic. “You want to stop me? Feh, go ahead and try!”
“GLADLY!” Sonic curled into a ball and started revving up like a turbo engine, before blasting off at Shadow.
Shadow merely jumped over the spin dash and hovered in mid air for a while, before curling up and countering with his own homing attack, knocking Sonic off of his feet.
Sonic went tumbling for a mile, before jumping back to his feet. Shaking off the dizziness, he ran at Shadow with super speed, while at the same time, getting out a ring. He jumped into the air, throwing the ring right at Shadow, who ducked the ring at once. At the same time Sonic launched himself into ball form once more, performing his “Sonic Dash,” charging towards the direction of the ring, in which Shadow was in the pathway of, and knocking Shadow out of the air, before shooting himself down like a meteor and smacking Shadow right into the ground.
Shadow only lay there for a moment, before jumping out of the newly formed crater and spitting out the dirt in his mouth. He gave a cocky grin as he stared at his rival. “Hmf… You’ve gotten a little stronger…but it still won’t be enough to beat me!” Shadow curled up into a ball and started revving up for his own spin dash. He rocketed towards Sonic like a turbo engine.
Sonic quickly dash leapt over the incoming Shadow, and avoided being knocked over. He quickly turned around and gave chase to Shadow’s retreating form. When Shadow halted his attack, Sonic leapt at Shadow and slammed him with a flying dash kick that sent both of them barreling into one of the marble pillars of the Emerald Altar, smashing it into pebbles. Sonic jumped away from the wreckage and surveyed aftermath of his deed, only to have Shadow fly out of the smoke and dust and crunch into Sonic’s chest with his own kick. Sonic went flying across the grassy plain before dragging into the earth, ripping up grass and dirt.
Meanwhile, Tails and Amy were busy carrying Knuckles and Rouge off to safety, away from the battlefield over to the Blue Tornado. “Man…” Tails breathed as he looked over Knuckles. “Shadow did quite a number on Knuckles. Look at all those cuts and bruises…”
“I know… Rouge isn’t looking too well either.” Amy noted. “And to think Shadow’s the cause of these injuries…and that he did them of his own caliber… How could he?”
“I don’t know Amy…” Tails sighed. “All I know is that Shadow’s gone off the deep end this time…” He propped Knuckles up into the back seat of the Blue Tornado, and Amy did the same with Rouge.
After Amy set Rouge down into the plane, she glanced nervously at the battlefield behind them. “I just hope Sonic has a better chance against him…” She sighed, wringing her hands.
Sonic and Shadow meanwhile, were bombarding each other with their homing attacks, crashing into each other repeatedly in their ball forms, neither one giving up, until the other went down from impact. After one final slam, they broke away from one another letting loose one last aerial strike.
“SONIC WIND!”
“CHAOS SPEAR!”
Both wind blast and chaos shot blew up on contact, as both hedgehogs touched the ground.
Shadow shook his head chuckling. “Yet again it seems we’re equally matched, Sonic. You seem to be the only one of your little group who’s truly a match for me.”
“Geez, I’m honored.” Sonic rolled his eyes at Shadow, not liking the fact that Shadow was calling his friends weak. “Shadow, just what is that you-WOOOOOOOAAAAAAAH!” Sonic felt the entire Island shake violently.
Shadow broke into a smile. “Looks like my giants did their job. The Black Arms now have the Master Emerald!” He pointed over to the Emerald Altar, which was now missing the Master Emerald. A few yards away, were the 4 giant soldiers, carrying the Master Emerald. They were standing there for 4 seconds before vanishing in a flash of yellow light. Shadow felt triumph flowing through his brain as he saw Sonic’s astonished and horrified look, as well as the terrified looks of Amy and Tails, as the Floating Island continued to quake. “CHAOS SPEAR!” Shadow fired one last Chaos Spear directly at the Emerald Altar, blasting it to rubble and pebbles. He turned back to Sonic and his friends, continuing to smile cruelly. “Happy landings everyone… CHAOS CONTROL!”
The moment that Shadow, Angel Island stopped quaking, and immediately plummeted to the sea below, carrying the screams of its helpless inhabitants upon it as it started to break way into chunks. Among everyone’s screams, Shadow’s laughter could be heard, echoing through the air.
TO BE CONTINUED




I DID NOT MAKE THIS STORY!! IT WAS WRITTEN BY A AUTHOR ON FANFICTION.COM CALLED “Milleniumon the Sonamy Freak”, and ALL credit goes to him/her.