Saints, be praised! He actually bothered to update!

I'd first like to deeply apologise for keeping you all waiting so long - just over a year, in fact. Truth be told, I had simply lost interest in continuing and thought it would be best to leave the story aside until I genuinely felt like carrying on with it. My attention has also been diverted by university work and various other fan projects. A few days ago, however, my classes for this year ended and I felt the urge to get off my bum and write something again. I remembered I had started this chapter a long while back and suddenly, ideas began sparking in my head. Skip ahead to now.

Apologies again for the ludicrous delays and I hope this latest installment is up to snuff.

CHAPTER 4
"SKY TROOPS"

Shadow awoke some hours later with a splitting headache. This was getting to be a very annoying habit in his opinion. Wherever he was, he hoped it was somewhere with a chemist nearby.

Shadow blinked. He must have been unconsious for hours as it was daylight again. The sun was blazing brightly through the cracks of a cloudy sky. A fine day for some; a horrid day for moody genetic experiments gone awry.

Shadow picked himself up. He appeared to be on a large stone platform. A tall alter stood before him as he pushed himself upright. No need for flashbacks this time; he had definitely been here before. He recognised it all. The sandy rock. The unusual carvings. The red echidna asleep in the corner.

"Ah, damn it!" said Shadow.

He was back at Glyphic Canyon, and the ruins were flying.

"Well, look who's finally up."

Shadow jumped. Black Doom was floating behind him, rider's crop in hand and a shrapnel helmet balanced on his head.

"Cute accessories, colonel," grumbled the hedgehog. "Where do you get that stuff? Mattel?." He peered over the edge of the platform. "I bet no-one expected this baby could fly."

Black Doom would have grinned smugly if he had a mouth. "I transported this brilliant flying fortress to this planet over two thousand years ago," he explained.

Shadow cocked an eyeridge. "And you're only using it now? Why the hell didn't you use it back then? Humans were even stupider in those days than they are now! It would have been like nuking fish in a barrel!"

"Listen," growled Black Doom. "When you become an evil alien overlord, you can take over the universe however you see fit! But since I'm the evil alien overlord, I'm going to take over the universe however I see fit! Got that?" Shadow said nothing. Black Doom snorted and turned to admire the flying ruins around them. "It's magnificant!" he said proudly. "The perfect killing machine...ready to impose terror in unimaginable ways!"

"The perfect killing machine?" said Shadow. "It's a few hunks of rock held up by party balloons!"

"The helium storage devices are your fault," snarled Black Doom. "The only reason we have resorted to using them is because you refused to touch my jew-."

"Oh no! We are not going through that routine again!" snapped Shadow. He was about to tell Black Doom just where he could stick said jewels when he noticed something in the distance. An enormous aircraft was heading towards them, about the size of a small town. Pouring out of every possible nook and cranny were several hundred squat mechanoids.

"Hmm," said Black Doom. "Do those fools really believe they can stop me?"

Shadow didn't dignify him with an response. Instead, he squinted at the large symbols splattered across the aircraft. All of them depicted a tooth-grinned face with an obscenely large mustashe. That was familiar alright.

"Isn't that...the doctor?" he asked.

Black Doom frowned and turned to the hedgehog. "Shadow, do not fail me," he said and sank downwards through the floor, out of sight.

"Hey, wait a minute!" called Shadow. "You haven't told me my stupid mission yet! Hello?"

But he'd already gone.

"Damn it," growled Shadow. He gazed upward, trying to clear his thoughts. "This blue sky," he mused, "staring at it from afar...have I seen it before? Oh wait. Of course I have. I see the sky every day. Why the heck did I say that?"

Unfortunately, Shadow didn't have time to give himself an answer. He had walked onto another conveniently-placed speed pad. The black hedgehog was sent screaming across the sky, straight through a pair of stone loops on another platform. Shadow hurtled into the air again and just when he thought his brain was going to explode from sensory overload...

Squelch!

Shadow waited a moment to recover. He had landed on another island, a soft squishy something having cushioned his fall. In front of him stood a short tunnel, through which he could see more Black Arms soldiers. He watched a particularly large one chase its comrades around with its purple sword, chortling stupidly.

"Hedgehog!"

Shadow tumbled backwards. The soft squishy something had wriggled out from under him. He knew those flailing purple tentacles anywhere.

"How dare you!" growled Doom's Eye, nursing his now-blackened eyeball. "What is this insubordination?"

"It's those goddamn developers!" said Shadow. "I hate them! I hate them all! I'm going to kill them! I'm going to kill them in their sleep! Then I'll learn Chaos Regeneration and kill them all over again! Then I'll-"

"Silence!" snapped the alien. "The foolish scientist still seeks to resist us! Use our cannon and blow his ships out of the sky!"

"I've already said I'm not helping you," said Shadow, arms crossed in typical anti-hero fashion. "You dithering dictators can blow yourselves up for all I care. Just leave me alone."

"Never!" bellowed Doom's Eye and swooped right into his face. "I want those ships destroyed! I want those Emeralds! I want you! You must fight for us! You will fight for us! You-"

"Chaos POKE!"

Doom's Eye howled with pain and flew away, tenctacles clutching his battered peeper. Shadow neatly tucked his copy of Exposition magazine into thin air and skated through the tunnel. The Black Arms soldiers were suprised to see him. The large one nearly dropped its purple sword mid-taunt.

"Outta the way, freaks!" called Shadow and bowled the grunts over with ease. The large one, however, proved more problematic. He was nearly twice as tall and built like a brick outhouse. Every time Shadow tried to Spin Dash it, he bounced right off its huge chest.

"You no so tough!" mocked the alien and swung his sword high as Shadow desperately reached for his handgun.

"No ammo!" he growled. "Great! Perfect! I don't even know why I have a gun!"

"Bye-bye, fuzzy thing!" said the soldier and prepared for a killing blow.

Suddenly, the alien gave a great howl of pain. He dropped his sword and sprinted through the tunnel, an electric cattle prod sticking out its rear like a steel tail.

"What the-?"

"Hoho, Shadow! Fancy running into you here!"

Shadow groaned. Hovering where the alien had stood was a television monitor with two small clawed hands. Plastered on the screen was a fat grinning face with a huge ginger mustache.

"Hello, Eggman."

"Ah, you do remember me!" said Eggman happily. "I was afraid I'd have to shock some sense into you too."

"It's hard to forget a face as goddamn stupid as yours," sneered Shadow. "Now what're you doing here?"

"Reclaiming my place as lead villain," replied Eggman. "I've had it with all these aliens and monsters and demi-gods. I've been Sonic's archnemesis for over ten years and if these freakshows want to waltz in here and take that away from me, they can do it over my cold, dead-"

"Revenge, got it," cut in Shadow. "So is there a reason you decided to save my life? Not very archnemesissy behaviour if you ask me."

"Actually, there is a reason," said Eggman. "I require your assistance. There's got to be some kind of peculiar power source that's keeping these ruins afloat. Find it and destroy it!"

"You mean the balloons?" asked Shadow. "Why the hell can't you do it?"

The doctor frowned. "I forgot to charge the Egg Viewer last night," he admitted. "I'm surprised the old girl's still hovering, to be honest."

Shadow remained unconvinced. "Then why not ask one of your other tinker toys to do it instead?"

"I have a reason!" said Eggman, a little too quickly.

"Oh really?" sneered Shadow. "And what's that?"

"Well, um...it's a secret! "

"Wait a minute. Is that a towel rack behind you?"

"What? No, no! It's, um...uh...a laser rifle! That's it!"

"Oh dear god, you've locked yourself in your bathroom, haven't you?"

"The security system's on the fritz, alright?" snapped Eggman. "Now pop those balloons or you will face the dire conse-"

Shadow punched the monitor aside. "And you wonder why you're not lead villain anymore," he sneered. He picked up the alien's long purple sword and sped on into the next tunnel.

"Oh no you don't!" barked Eggman. The Egg Viewer carefully picked itself off the ground and followed the hedgehog inside.

Shadow was having the time of his life. He had caught a group of Black Arms soldiers completely by surprise in a cavern ahead and was hacking through them like wheat with his new blade.

"Now this is more like it!" proclaimed Shadow, slicing one of the aliens clean in two. "Defenceless idiots and a stupidly oversized sword - it doesn't get more antiheroic!"

At last, only one soldier remained. Shadow was gearing up for another attack when he felt something sucking on his ankle. He looked down and saw a large, purple leech oozing over his left foot.

"Hey!" cried Shadow and took a violent swing at the creature. Unfortunately, the sword proved too large and the angle too tricky. The black hedgehog missed his target and flew onto his back with an echoing thud. The leech continued sucking away, none the wiser. Shadow tried to pick himself up, but the stone floor had knocked him quite senseless. The remaining Black Arm soldier leered over him, wrenching the purple sword from his hands and preparing to strike.

"Here I come to save the daaaaaay!"

The alien roared as the Egg Viewer crashed into its chest, sending it flying across the cavern and straight through one of the walls. The Egg Viewer's little arms seized Shadow by the wrists and sped through the freshly-made hole, back into the daylight. Shadow was still feeling groggy as Eggman laid him down, but a quick punch on the noise brought him round again.

"Doctor, that's the second time you've saved my life," said Shadow, peeling the leech from his foot. "Do it again and I'll personally flush you down that toilet of yours!"

"There's gratitude for you," sniffed Eggman. "Don't think this is going to be a habit, though, Shadow. The only reason I'm saving your hide so you can destroy those balloons for me. That's all. This isn't charity. I'm not a good guy. I'm not a wimp. I'm not the comic relief. I'm not! I'm not, honestly! No, please! Don't! Stop the laughter, Shadow! Stop the mocking laughter!"

Shadow ignored the doctor's ramblings. He was more interested in the unusual machine sitting next to them. It was short and stocky, with two large legs and a gattling gun mounted on the front. His curiosity and weaponry fetish overpowering him, Shadow clambered into the cockpit.

"G.U.N. must have left this behind," observed Eggman when he had recomposed himself. "It looks like it can jump pretty high."

"I'll be the judge of that," said Shadow gruffly and examined the controls. They were terribly simplistic - a steering wheel, an 'On/Off' switch and a large red button labelled 'JUMP!'. Shadow flicked the switch and the walker sparked to life, standing erect. Grinning, the hedgehog decided to take it for a test drive. He drove the walker in small circles around the area, the engine chugging happily all the while.

"Seems in working order," Shadow thought aloud. "Why would G.U.N. just leave this lying around?"

He found out as soon as he pressed 'JUMP!'.

The walker rocketed skyward like a frog with a firework up its bottom. Shadow wanted to scream, but his snout had been pushed back into his eyes by the G-force. All he could do was sit helplessly as the machine flew higher and higher into the heavens.

Dr Eggman found it hard not to laugh. "Glorious! Simply glorious!" he chortled as the Egg Viewer continued its trek through the ruins. "He may have been my only ally against that T-headed terror, but seeing that is worth every Egg Pawn I'll ever lose!" The monitor floated along a long pathway lined with tall pillars."Who knows?" he went on. "Maybe that'll teach him to be a bit more humble in future, the rude little bas-"

CRRRRASH!

Shadow staggered from the wrecked walker, clutching his head. Immortality doesn't excuse one from excrutiating pain.

"Note to self," he mused groggily, "never do anything ever again."

A loud rumbling noise snapped Shadow back to reality. The walker's crash landing had sent a tremor right along the pathway and the pillars were starting to collapse. Wasting no time, Shadow ran as the mighty columns toppled to the ground. The noise was deafening him and he could barely see for the dust, but he kept on running. Even when he heard the devestation fade from earshot, he didn't dare stop.

"Intruder alert! Intruder alert!"

Shadow screeched to a halt. He had almost run straight into a wall of strange orange robots carrying silver lances. They had a dumpy build, with short limbs and a Cheshire Cat grin fixed on their faces. They could only be Egg Pawns.

"Hostile force detected!" they announced in their crackly monotone. "Subject identified as Shadow the Hedgehog! Orders from the great Dr Eggman: terminate with extreme prejudice!"

Before Shadow could even open his mouth to deride them, the Egg Pawns had surrounded him. Shadow frowned. At least two dozen of them. This required a little extra firepower. He slowly reached into his fur as the Egg Pawns closed in, chanting their sinister battle cry.

"Coochie coo! Coochie coo! Coochie coo!"

Shadow rolled his eyes as he withdrew one of the four Chaos Emeralds from his fur.

"Chaos BLAST!"

BOOOOOM!

A familiar burst of red energy eminated from the dark hedgehog. The Egg Pawns were vaporised before they could take another step.

"I did it! I did it!" cried Shadow triumphantly as he faded back to black. "I channeled the Emeralds' destructive power of my own free will! And I didn't even need the magazine that time! Truly, I am the master of Chaos energy! How do you like that, Mr Chaos Blast?"

BOOOOOM!

Realising he'd popped two of the balloons holding his platform up, Shadow decided he had better move on. Quickly.

The latest Chaos Blast incident did not go unnoticed. Wherever Shadow went, he found himself under attack from all sides. The Egg Pawns wanted their fallen brethrin avenged, the Black Arms wanted payment for the damages to their base and a G.U.N. fighter jet parachuted a note down saying not to touch their stuff. On every island, in every tunnel, before and after every loop, he couldn't get away from them.

At first, Shadow enjoyed the attention. It gave him an ideal oppertunity to perfect his fighting skills. He was able to hone his Homing Attack to perfection and even managed to swipe a few new weapons from the Egg Pawns. He decided to ignore the bazooka in future, however, when he took out three whole islands with one shot.

It wasn't long, either, before Shadow started to get bored. Run a bit, Egg Pawns, run a bit more, aliens, loop-the-loop, Egg Pawns and aliens, run a bit, aliens, loop-the-loop, aliens, Egg Pawns, run a bit more...

"Damn, this is tedious," he proclaimed as he ripped through his umpteenth Egg Pawn. "I'll never discover the true meaning of my existance at this rate! Hell, I'll be lucky I don't die of boredom before I find the next Emerald!" Shadow pondered as he broke a Black Arms soldier's neck. "There must be a way for me to skip past these banal fights, to control what-."

Control.

That was it.

"Of course!" he cried. Hurredly, he beat a gang of Black Arms soldiers off with an Egg Pawn leg and withdrew another Emerald.

"Chaos CONTROL!"

In the blink of an eye, Shadow was away, his body dancing with blue electricity. He shot through the ruins like a missile, thundering through loops and rushing over islands. Black Arms and Egg Pawns could only stand and gawp as the black-and-blue hedgehog whooshed past. At least until they were blown off the side of the ruins.

Shadow began to enjoy himself again. Even though he felt ready to throw his guts out, the thought of reaching the end of the ruins kept him going. He came to another tunnel, praying it would be the last, when...

"HEDGEHOG!"

Shadow stumbled to the ground, instinctively curled himself up and clattered into a nearby pillar like a stray bowling ball.

"Rrrrrr! What in the hell were you-?"

He stopped. Hovering beside him, slightly crooked, was the Egg Viewer; battered, bruised and covered with duct tape. Dr Eggman hopped around the cracked screen, angrily brandishing a loofah.

"THERE you are, you Ultimate Idiot!" he barked. "How dare you attack my wonderous machines! You need to destroy all the power sources - not me!"

"Sorry, Doc," sneered Shadow. "Your gut looked kind of balloonish from way up there." He examined the patched-up monitor more closely. "So how did this happen? Did you mommy fix it up for you?"

"My Egg Pawns are a loyal breed," said Eggman proudly. "The second you left my Egg Viewer to rust, a nearby squad gladly donated their parts to rebuild it. You could learn a thing or two from my henchbots, young hedgehog."

"I've learned that you need to be in a care home," retorted Shadow. He was just about to race off through the next tunnel when something hard knocked him aside. A gang of Black Arms soldiers had arrived with bags of fresh balloons. Shadow whipped out his freshly reloaded handgun and opened fire. These aliens, however, were were also carrying electrical shields with them. No matter how many times Shadow shot at them, the barriers absorbed his bullets with ease.

"Firearms won't be good against those shields," said Eggman obviously. "Strike them directly!"

Shadow readied himself for a Spin Dash, but one of the aliens took him by surprise and knocked him to the ground. He thought of using the Emeralds again, but the soldiers were quickly closing in on him. There was only one thing left to do.

"Hey! What're you doing?"

Shadow grabbed the Egg Viewer and threw it at the advancing aliens. The soldiers toppled like skittles as he skated on into the next tunnel.

"Get back here!" he heard Eggman cry, but Shadow ignored him. That Emerald had to be around here somewhere.

Shadow stopped dead as he came out the other side. The weather seemed to have changed in an instant. It was now raining heavily, and the clouds had turned a dingy black. Distant thunder rumbling up ahead.

"How long was I in there?" Shadow mused to himself. "Was that some sort of time tunnel? Is this the future? Or even the past?"

"It's the present, you ebony ignoramous!" barked Eggman, as the battered Egg Viewer wobbled into view. "The weather just gets a bit turbulent on the inside of the clouds!"

"Haven't you gotten it through your shell yet?" snarled Shadow. "I couldn't care less about your little inferiority complex. I'm going to find the Chaos Emeralds and unlock my destiny, and nothing will stand in my way!"

"What about a five mile drop?"

Shadow looked ahead. He had reached the end of the pathway, yet he could see more ruins far off in the distance. Shadow frowned. There was no chance of jumping across and he doubted whether the Emeralds would keep him airbourne for long.

"Well, well, well," beamed Eggman. "Looks like the big bad Ultimate Lifeform needs help crossing the street. Don't you worry, young man. The indefatigable Dr Eggman will-"

SMASH!

Shadow jumped back and stared in amazement. A large, leathery hawk, most likely another of Black Doom's pets, seemed to have spotted the Egg Viewer glittering in the rain below and mistaken it for an egg. The creature cawed contently as it sat on the monitor, breaking the screen a second time.

"What luck," said Shadow to himself. "A getaway vehicle."

The Black Hawk stared at Shadow in mild confusement. Before it could do anything, the hedgehog leapt onto its back and the two began to wrestle violently. A few seconds later, Shadow emerged triumphant, an Egg Viewer cable wrapped around the bird's beak like reins.

"Onward!"

Shadow clicked his heels and the Black Hawk took off into the dark sky. The heavy rain made it very difficult to see. Several times, they nearly collided with other Hawks in mid-air and Shadow had to blast them out of the way. Nonetheless, he soldiered on until the final section of ruins came into view.

"We're almost there!" Shadow cried. "Down, beast!"

The Black Hawk prepared to descend when Shadow thought he heard voices between the regular claps of thunder. He looked around, squinting through the rain. Flying in his direction was a brown figure astride a large turquoise...Well, the only appropriate word was 'dragon'.

"Well, that's it," Shadow heard the brown figure call, "I've officially no idea where we are."

"I'm real sorry, Sally," came the dragon's gloomy reply. "This crazy weather's screwing with my inner radar. I don't know if I'm coming or going."

"It's OK, Dulcy," Sally assured her, "it's not your fault. I think we'd better land soon, though. I doubt we'll last much longer up here in these conditions."

"Yeah, you're ri-" The dragon's long neck snapped upright. "Hey, Sally! I see another flying thingy, and he's got a real ugly rider thingy too!"

Shadow slowly reached for his handgun.

"Another one?" said Sally. "Where are they all coming from, and just what's with these ruins all the way up here? I swear no-one tells us anything anymore."

"Can I blast 'em, Sally? Pleeease?"

"Dulcy, we were lucky to survive the last time. Let's just get out of here and back to Knoth-."

"Too late!"

Shadow barely had time to gasp when a jet of ice breath froze his Black Hawk solid. He began firing wildly in the dragon's direction, but she was already diving down to earth, her screaming passenger holding on for dear life.

"You little WHORES!" Shadow bellowed after them as his frozen steed began to drop. By good fortune, they were at least over the ruins again. The frozen Hawk plummeted onto a nearby platform and crumbled in a shower of ice as it hit the stone floor. Shadow himself was catapulted forward on landing and bounced into a tunnel like a beach ball.

"HELP, GODDAMN IT!" cried the hedgehog, but no-one could. Especially the Black Arms soldiers he had just bowled over.

Shadow burst into the open, where it was magically bright and sunny again. The poor hedgehog tumbled down a steep pathway, shot through two large loops and wiped out an entire fleet of Egg Pawns before he felt himself slowing down.

"Come on, come on!"

At last, Shadow rolled to a standstill at the edge of a platform. He collapsed on the floor, tired but triumphant. In his right hand was the fifth Chaos Emerald, wrenched from one of the Egg Pawns he had just flattened.

In his left hand was a Black Arms rocket.

Shadow felt his stomach implode as he was once again sent spiralling into the stratosphere.

"WHO THE HELL LEAVES GODDAMN ROCKETS JUST LYING A-GODDAMN-ROUND?" he roared to no-one in particular. Hurridly, the hedgehog clamped the fifth Emerald in his mouth and consulted his copy of Exposition magazine.

"Dere'sh no plade like hoge! Dere'sh no plade like hoge! Dere'sh no plade like hoge! Chaod Concrol, ackivake!"

Pop.

TO BE CONTINUED...

Well, hope that lived down to your expectations. Apologies one last time for the insane delay and see you in another five years!