Sonic Adventure 2: Radical City
A fan fic adaptation of Sonic's first encounter with Shadow on the streets of Capital City.

By The Virus



It was night in the city. Shadow stood high up on the bridge structure and surveyed the chaos he had caused from afar. Flames licked around an overturned car, and broken robot debris lay scattered over the ground outside the Federal Reserve Bank at the end of the street. Another car had swerved off the road and ploughed through a store window. Shattered glass carpeted the sidewalk. Uniformed humans held back crowds of gawking onlookers, others tended to the injured.

"How pathetic!" scoffed the hedgehog disdainfully.

A number of white vehicles with blue and red flashing lights were clustered around below him. He watched as several more skidded to a halt with screeching tyres and blaring sirens. Shadow stared into a pulsing red light atop one of the cars, suddenly transfixed.

Warning lamps flashed on and off, alternately washing the hallway in darkness and ugly red light. "Find them before they escape!" ordered a harsh voice, terrifyingly close. Shadow ran down the long corridor, his heart pounding in his ears over the din of the alarm. The breathless girl struggled to keep up. He dragged her on desperately.

A single crack of gunshot echoed down the corridor.

"Maria!" he cried aloud, abruptly snapping back to reality. A cold night breeze whipped through his black quills for a second before the vivid memories coursed through his mind again.

The glass capsule closed around him. The wounded girl leaned heavily against a console a few feet away.

"Shadow, I beg of you," she said between ragged breaths, her voice hardly more than a whisper.

Shadow pressed his palms against the glass. "Maria!"

She turned to him, her face pale from blood loss, her blue eyes filled with sorrow. "Please... Do it for me. For all the people on that planet..."

Shadow looked on in horror as she gripped the release handle for the escape pod.

"Sayonara... Shadow the hedgehog," she whispered sadly.

The capsule launched.

Shadow found himself back on the bridge, a bright searchlight shining into his face. The memories had been so real, so incredibly vivid... and yet they had seemed patchy and incomplete. Nevertheless, to Shadow the message was clear. "I still remember what I promised you..." he said through clenched teeth. "For all the people of this planet, I promise you... revenge!"

With that vow he turned around and dropped onto the suspension cable of the bridge. Grinding down the thick metal cable, he contemplated the stolen Chaos Emerald he had in his possession. It would be simple to use the gem to activate Chaos Control, his innate ability to twist time and space, and warp to safety. But quickly he dismissed the idea - he needed to let off some steam.

Leaping onto the deck of the bridge, Shadow careered into a group of GUN robots, reducing them to wreckage before they could even raise their weapons. The bridge seemed to be still under construction and there were many treacherous gaps and incomplete sections. This served to turn the structure into a perilous obstacle course, and with GUN droids swarming all over and jet aircraft screaming overhead poised to attack, Shadow would have his work cut out to make it across.

He tore down the road, jet skates blazing. Heaven help anyone who stood in his way.

*****

"This is Spider Troop Big Foot! Big Foot to headquarters!" yelled the mech pilot into his radio. "Have engaged the enemy and request backup!"

The missile pods either side of the cockpit opened up launched their deadly payload at the blue hedgehog.

Sonic crouched as the projectiles streaked towards him. They were almost upon him when he suddenly leapt up and into the air, his powerful legs catapulting in a high arc over the missiles. There was a series of dull explosions as the salvo impacted the ground where he had stood not half a second earlier. His spinning body smacked into the cockpit, already damaged and smoking from his earlier assaults.

Sonic bounced off the mech and landed on the ground in front of it. The towering machine wobbled but didn't fall.

Darn, thought Sonic. Stubborn bucket of bolts, aren't we?

The robot's rocket engines fired and it tucked its two huge metal legs underneath it as it lifted off the ground. It flew to the far corner of the square and swooped around towards the hedgehog. He dodged to his right as it strafed him with a burst of machinegun-fire. It started to swing around for a second sweep. Sonic leapt onto a large wooden crate and from there launched another spin-attack as the vehicle turned to face him. That did it - there was an explosion and the Big Foot fell out of the air. It managed to extend its legs but they buckled underneath it as it crashed to the ground.

"What?! You're just one hedgehog!" wailed the pilot as the machine keeled over onto its side, pouring black smoke.

"Hey guys, take care!" laughed Sonic turning away from the destroyed robot. He walked away from his handiwork and pondered his next move. He had spent the whole day evading GUN's forces through the city. As night fell he thought he had given them the slip, but then that metal monstrosity had turned up out of nowhere and now he'd have to lose them all over again.

The worst part was he still didn't know what he was supposed to have done. That afternoon a bunch of GUN troops had simply shown up and arrested him. With barely a word of explanation he had been handcuffed and bundled into a helicopter... From which he had promptly escaped, he remembered grinning. Bet they never expected me to bail out in the middle of the flight, he thought, proud of the rather reckless stunt.

He was snapped out of his reverie when from out of the corner of his eye he caught sight of movement on the rooftops. He whirled around as a dark shape dropped down from a building and landed lightly on top of the smashed mech. The figure stood and smiled at him coldly.

"What?!" gasped Sonic.

It was hedgehog. It looked remarkably similar to himself, except for a slightly different styling of its quills and darker black and red colouration. It held something in its hand and as Sonic stared it raised the object to the sky and spoke with reverence. "It all starts with this: A jewel containing the ultimate power!"

Sonic recognised the large green gemstone with a start. "That's a... Chaos Emerald!" he cried in surprise.

The black hedgehog sneered at him with amusement. It seemed to be taking a smug satisfaction from Sonic's awe.

Suddenly everything clicked into place - the military pursuit, the accusations of escape... He was being persecuted for a crime he didn't commit, and he suddenly realised why.

"Now I know what's going on," he said walking towards the impostor. "The military have mistaken me for the likes of you! So... where do you think you're going with that Emerald?" challenged Sonic striding forward purposefully. The black hedgehog watched him silently with the same amused half-smile. Sonic broke into a run. "Say something! You fake hedgehog!"

As Sonic charged towards the ruined mech, the hedgehog atop it raised the Chaos Emerald again. He tossed it casually upwards and then snatched it out of the air, brandishing it dramatically at arm's length. "Chaos Control!" he commanded. The jewel flared with an intense white light and radiant arcs of energy crackled out of it spectacularly. In a flash the hedgehog disappeared.

Sonic felt the waves of energy emanating from the gem, twisting his perceptions, a flicker of nausea, a sense of disorientation. The black hedgehog flew past him at an impossible speed, but for a brief moment time seemed to slow to a crawl, and the two locked eyes. Slowly, with leaden limbs, Sonic turned as the snarling hedgehog moved past him. The treacle-slow feeling suddenly left, and Sonic stumbled to a halt as the black hedgehog shot away.

"Wow, he's fast!" muttered Sonic, as he scanned the area for the strange hedgehog. "Hey, it's not his speed," he realised, catching sight of him atop a building across the street. "He must be using the Chaos Emerald to warp!"

"My name is Shadow," sneered the black hedgehog, idly tossing and catching the green gem in one hand. "I am the world's Ultimate Life Form! There's no time for games..." Shadow flourished the Chaos Emerald again. "Farewell!"

Sonic shielded his eyes as the stone flared blindingly white again. "Shadow..." he mumbled. "What is he?" Police sirens suddenly blared, and from behind him there came the unmistakable sound of guns being cocked. Lots of guns. Several Mono Beetles fixed him in their spotlights as he spun around to face the squad of armoured GUN troopers and the score of rifles levelled at him.

"Don't move!" yelled their leader. "Stay where you are! Keep your hands up in the air!"

Sonic groaned. "Not again!" He slowly raised his hands above his head.

*****

A flash of incandescent light and Shadow materialised in the alley, Chaos Emerald clutched in his hand. He began to prepare himself for the long-range warp to the Space Colony high above Earth. Such a distance would be an exhausting feat, and he would need a moment to focus himself.

His thoughts wandered to the other hedgehog he had encountered. Shadow had never seen another hedgehog before, but he was sure there could be nothing special about this blue one. He was the Ultimate Life Form; nothing could possibly stand in his way! And yet... had he imagined it, or had the blue hedgehog been able to see him as he Chaos Controlled? For a heart-stopping moment they had made eye contact halfway through Shadow's warp. How was that possible? Could this other, this faker, have some affinity with Chaos Energy too?

Shadow shook his head. He and he alone could bend the Emeralds' power to his will. This inferior blue hedgehog served no threat to him. Shadow raised the Emerald. Its vivid flare lit up the dark alleyway, and Shadow was gone.