"Did we have to be so aggressive?" groaned Franklin to his other side. "If we let them, they'd take our power away from us. It was required by necessity. As will disposing of any other obstacles in our path." Entropy scoffed back at him, annoyed by his weakness. "No! We can avoid it if we just talked to-" "Talk is not going to make it any better. That path has ended, as is your old life. We must be better, stronger now that I am all that is left for you." Entropy quickly interrupted Franklin, both flying over the desert after fleeing from the Restoration’s HQ. The white wolf stopped midair, hovering above the near limitless sea of sand, near the site where he first came back to his senses after… the accident. He looked at his hand, now garnished by the Omega-like symbol on his palm and on the back of it, before clenching it into a fist. “This… thing needs improvement…” muttered Entropy. “...What thing?” asked Franklin, to which Entropy made a frustrated grunt and flew back towards the oasis, standing horizontally above the water to watch his reflection. “This. All of this. It’s too weak. WE are too weak. We need protection. We need…” “...a suit of armor.” Franklin concluded. “...Precisely.” mused the other side of the wolf. “But… where to get one?” Franklin thought it over, and while the choice wasn't a pleasant one for him to move forward with, it was the most efficient way of getting what he needed to craft one himself. "We go to the doctor. A single base or weapons cache will have everything WE need.", Franklin answered back to Entropy. “We take from him… Just like he took from us…” Entropy mused, his body barely containing quivers of excitement. Entropy understood that the pragmatism of the situation outweighed the feelings of anger using the doctor's tools to assist themselves. But it balanced out with him seeing Franklin's first voluntary step towards the path Entropy desired for him. With nothing else to add, Entropy just sprinted away from the oasis, leaving a huge dust cloud in his wake as he flew off.
Not too far away, Shadow sprinted between the dunes, skating his way up to the oasis, the impact zone back when his target first used his powers. He told Rouge and the others to stay behind, he didn’t want them to slow him down… or so he said to them, when in truth, he didn’t want to risk their lives. He stopped near the oasis, having gotten all the intel he had from G.U.N. satellites, and began to walk across the lake. Shadow looked around the dunes trying to pinpoint a general direction. Upon closer inspection, Shadow noticed that at least 3 waves of sand had unnatural curves that appeared like a single burst of wind cut straight through them. Shadow checked to see how the sand was flowing in the wind. Based on how they were flowing towards the sun, Shadow got a lead on where Entropy was headed now. “There you are.” commented the Ultimate Lifeform, dashing towards the deduced direction at high speed as to catch Entropy before he could cause further damage. As he raced towards the dunes, he began to get some deja vu about the surrounding zone, as well as beginning to figure out what his target’s objective was. His suspicions were proven to be true as he stopped right in front of Eggman’s old base in the pyramids, back where it all started for him.
“I don’t like this… I don’t like this, I don’t like this, I don’t like this…” Silver muttered as he walked in a straight line, nervously holding his hands behind his back. Rouge, Omega and Knuckles had been left behind by Shadow once they responded to the HQ’s distress call. As always, the ebony hedgehog didn’t give any command, just zipping away and leaving the others behind as he was prone to do. Rouge wistfully looked towards the horizon, in the direction where Shadow fled. “HE-IS-SHADOW.” said Omega, making the bat look at his inorganic colleague. “HE-CAN-HANDLE-HIMSELF.” stated the robot. “I wasn’t concerned about that, buddy.” she scoffed, laughing but it was to hide her true feelings. “It’s just… this guy means problems, right? Snowflake said that, in the future, he will become a monster of some kind… And now he’s here, in this timeline… Have we accelerated that moment from happening?" she mused, resting her chin on her hand, "IT-IS-UNKNOWN-WHETHER-IT-LEADS-TO-WHICH-FUTURE. ALL-THAT-MATTERS-IS-DESTROYING-THE-THREAT-BEFORE-IT-DESTROYS-SHADOW." said the battle bot. “You bet it does!” Silver shouted, ignoring Omega’s intermission. “This ABSOLUTELY means that we have altered the course of time in the wrong way! AGAIN!!” he growled with uncharacteristically pessimism in his voice. “Also, don’t call me snowflake.” he added, snorting. “Well, you kinda do look like one.” Sonic chuckled. Everyone else glared back at him, they knew he was prone to jokes, but this was really not the time. “Can you take ANYTHING seriously, blue?!” grunted Knuckles, clenching his fists. “Nah, I have you guys for that.” Sonic shrugged. “Sides, what’s the big deal? We can just go there and check on Shads ourselves. I know him, he’s gonna get in over his head with him, so it’s best if we’re there to pick up the pieces.” said the blue hero, getting up and cracking his knuckles. “Ugh, shoulda guessed you wanted to go there…” grunted Knuckles “Beats standing here, doin’ nothing.” said the hedgehog. “...You do make a fair point.” said Silver, taking flight. “Quick, we have no time to waste.” he added before flying out. Sonic was quick to follow, with Rouge and Omega flying behind them. “And they’re gone… Well, looks like we’re on cleaning duty.” said Amy, sighing. Knuckles huffed and got up, helping her and Tails clean up the mess left by Entropy. Meanwhile, Sonic and the others ran towards Shadow’s direction, helped by the G.U.N. tracker he had left open just in case. Sonic quickly flanked Silver and asked him: “How’d ya beat him last time?” “Entropy? I… never did… I told you: every time I fought him, he’d usually end it himself, saying how my “measly” powers bore him.” sighed the psychic hedgehog. "Oh c'mon! Giving up before the story even gets going? There's something you had to have learned or noticed that made him run outta steam. You'd be surprised how often villains use that to trick people into believing they're invincible. But it's usually bravado to hide their weaknesses." Sonic scoffed, not letting the thought of Entropy being actually invincible fool him for even a second. “...Are you suggesting that he actually fled to conserve power?” asked Silver, being hit by a perspective he never even considered before. “It’s a very big possibility, Silv. If he’s as powerful as you said he is, then there’s no way that using all that energy comes without a cost.” explained Sonic, running backwards to look Silver straight in his eyes. “Maybe… No, possibly… Ugh, how come I hadn’t thought of it before?!” Silver groaned and facepalmed. Sonic smiled and resumed running straight, as the four of them headed towards Pyramid Cave.
In the abandoned base, Entropy had made quick work of the outdated, yet still very lethal, security system and was now in the control room, digging up through scraps to see if he could find anything usable. “...That one… Oh, and that one… Don’t forget that one…” Franklin’s voice echoed in their shared mind as Entropy took the several pieces. “Can we really make sense of this junk?” asked Entropy. “You’ll see. I did build the thing powering us, remember…?” Franklin was cut off by the far away sounds of scrap. Shadow was gaining on them. “No time for that! They found us!” grunted Entropy, giving back control to Franklin so that he could build the armor himself. Franklin huffed as he built the armor, following the specs in his mind. It didn’t take him very long, using his gravity powers to place and weld each piece together until the armor was complete and he wore it. “Virtually indestructible while remaining sleek enough to let us perform even the most minute of movement.” said the wolf, proud of himself. They switched control again and Entropy got ready to welcome their guest, the gloves of the armor glowing in green as he kept his guard up. Suddenly, something fast flew directly in front of him, but he quickly caught it with his powers. However, it was merely the head of one of the Egg Pawns Entropy mauled as he made his way through the security system.
Distracted, he didn’t see Shadow teleporting behind him and quickly securing him in a pretty strong necklock, blocking his foe and pinning him to the ground. Entropy widened his eyes and struggled, surprised by Shadow’s maneuver and trying to get him off. Shadow was all but phased by his attempts and used his free hand to try and get a hold of the device, planning to rip it off of Entropy’s back thus ending the nightmare before it could start. “RRGGHH!! GET!! OFF!!” Entropy yelled and, using his powers, pushed Shadow off of him, sending him onto the wall, although the Ultimate Lifeform easily spun in the air and cushioned the landing with his feet, propelling away and hiding in the tangled mass of cables hanging above them. Assessing that that wouldn’t work again, Shadow opted for plan B.
His fists lit up and sparkled in yellow as he charged up an attack, dodging a heavy piece of machinery Entropy threw at him and shouting: “CHAOS SPEAR!!” as he threw his signature attack onto his foe, his new plan was to weaken him with multiple surgical attacks meant to weaken the armor so as to gain another chance to remove the device. “Tch…” Entropy scoffed and began to dodge the attacks, floating a few inches off the ground and just “sliding” around skillfully. Shadow made a scoff and just threw more in his direction, trying to overwhelm him with the sheer numbers of Spears he could fire. “That’s all you’re good for? Throwing firecrackers? You disappoint me, hedgehog…” snorted Entropy, just waving his arm from left to right and making the projectiles explode in the air. Shadow winced slightly at that but recomposed immediately, instead dashing away from the control room and into the lower section of the base, making Entropy follow him. He floated as he headed towards Shadow’s direction. “Where do you think you’re going, little hedgehog? There is no escape from me.” Entropy sneered as he looked around. “Who says I’m escaping?” Shadow’s voice echoed, making it impossible to pinpoint his location. Entropy made a disgruntled grunt as he reached the belly of the base, right below the desert. He looked around the empty, dark space, switching the vision of his goggles to heat vision to see where his foe was. But he found Shadow too late, as he manned the controls of the hatch above, making it open and striking Entropy with a few quintillions of sand, hoping to drown him in it or at least hoping that the amount of sand would slow him down.
Entropy did get hit by the huge sand stream pretty hard, being knocked on his knees as the sand quickly submerged him and half of the space he was in. Shadow closed the hatch, then used one of G.U.N.’s latest weapons, a portable voltaic cannon, to fire a massive surge of electricity which crystallized the sand immediately. Shadow allowed himself to draw a breath of relief, but sadly that didn’t last as the ground shook and the crystallized sand began to crack, green energy surging from the cracks. Shadow grunted, thinking that he had tried anything at this point and not even drowning him in the freaking desert worked. He huffed and clenched his fists. “Only one option left…” he said, removing his Inhibitor Rings and beginning to charge up his pure, unrestrained power which made him shine in red and growl in exertion. With a simple gesture, Entropy broke free of his sand prison and dusted himself off, floating up towards him. “Did you really think that would work, speck?” scoffed the villain, folding his arms. “Honestly? Yeah. But if I can’t detain you… I will destroy you!” Shadow growled as his Chaos power reached critical levels, veins beginning to form on his arms and legs as he glowed in red. Entropy scoffed again, but in his mind Franklin began to notice the signs of an upcoming Chaos energy meltdown. He did study the Chaos Drives enough to know when one of them was about to set off, with rather catastrophic results. “WE HAVE TO GO! NOW! HE’S GONNA…!!” shouted Franklin in Entropy’s mind. “HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” Shadow shouted as he released all of the Chaos Energy he had stored in his body into a singular, devastating blow. The Chaos Blast. The radius of the explosion made escaping it in the limited space Entropy was simply impossible. Entropy grunted and shielded himself with his arms as the reddish globe of energy enveloped the entire area.
A little earlier, Sonic and the others had arrived at the oasis. “Ground zero…” muttered Silver, landing. “Is this where he landed?” asked Rouge, wiping her forehead. “Seems like it.” Sonic replied, shrugging. “Not gonna be able to find much here, but something is better than nothing.” he added. Everyone silently agreed and started looking around but, as predicted, not much was to be found. “Huff, nothing… Why did I choose to wear black if I knew I was getting in the middle of the desert?” grunted Rouge, getting a little sweaty due to the heat. “At least you don’t have fur…” huffed Silver, he too was suffering the heat due to his chesthair. “Hey, how come we don’t just follow the tracker?” asked Sonic, dusting himself. “Huh… That’s a great question. Why did we stop following it?” asked Silver to Rouge, who picked up the tracker. “Hm… damn thing must be busted. It stopped beeping a few m-” she got interrupted as the ground began to shake violently. “YIKES!” groaned Sonic, struggling to keep upright. Silver and Rouge flew up and Omega just hanged on. “...Everyone okay?” asked the future hero. “An earthquake? Here? Doesn’t make sense… Unless…” Sonic mused. “LARGE-QUANTITY-OF-CHAOS-ENERGY-DETECTED.” said Omega, pointing towards the horizon, where a dust cloud could be seen. “Well I wonder who else that could be then.” Asked Rouge. “No time for that! Let’s move!” Sonic bolted away. She shook her head and followed him, Silver and Omega not far behind, as they headed towards the pyramids.
Back to the pyramid, or more specifically what remained of it, the entire thing collapsed after Shadow’s Chaos Blast destroyed the base of the construction, causing it to fall over itself, burying everything underneath it in debris. Shadow coughed violently as the dust and sand began to settle. Only his head and one arm came out from the massive pile of debris, pinning him down to the ground. “Rrrggghhh… Can’t… move… Tracking device… busted… Urgh…” he growled, struggling to try and get out, despite the fatigue he was still trying to pick himself up. “At least the menace has been… dealt with…?” he said to himself as he heard the ground shake. “No way… he couldn’t have…” he muttered. The shakes began more and more violent until the top of the debris exploded and from it came out Entropy, discouragingly there wasn’t a single scratch on his body. Entropy flew down, landing next to Shadow and dusting himself off. "Burying me alive, I at least applaud you for how far you went on ensuring that worked." Shadow was then lifted up by Entropy through his gravity powers. Shadow tried hard to struggle as hard as he could, moving any part of his arms he could. But the force of gravity was so overwhelming it was as if he was a statue by how vast the power forced the hedgehog to heel. "Now, I show YOU, who the Ultimate is." Shadow felt that same force tightening around him, starting to crack his bones… He then got sent flying over to the wall as Entropy kicked him right in his face, the force of impact so great it caused a huge indent in the wall. “Don’t think I’m done!” said Entropy, taking flight and dashing towards Shadow, hitting him in the stomach with his head. Shadow hissed in pain, that felt like being struck by a missile. Then, the wolf started to hit Shadow with punches and kicks, each attack strengthened by Entropy’s gravity powers, making him hit like a truck. Not even Shadow’s body could sustain such heavy damage, soon he began to taste his own blood. Very few foes have ever done serious harm to Shadow before. Even less so managed to make him bleed. Entropy now became one of the few in this hedgehog's life to even question if he would survive this fight. Entropy panted slightly as he loomed above Shadow’s battered body, grinning under the mask as he charged up another hit. “...STOP!!” said Franklin’s voice in his head. “...Are you serious?! I was about to free us from this… inconvenience, why would you want me to…?” growled Entropy, meanwhile Shadow barely panted, blood dripping from the side of his mouth. “The power… It’s dwindling… How… How did we burn out so quickly already?” said Franklin. Entropy slouched a bit, but then clenched his fist. “...Huh… So, there is a limit…” he muttered to himself, before moving his face closer to Shadow’s. “...You’re pathetic. All that power and still you’re not able to touch me… There’s no fun in killing someone like you… Consider yourself lucky, “Ultimate Lifeform”... I guess everyone has their limits, and who sets the bar for them.” scoffed the wolf. Shadow mustered enough strength to spit some blood on Entropy’s glasses. That elicited a chuckle from Entropy. “You’ve got balls, I’ll admit it. I like you. I hope you survive, so I can enjoy breaking you again. Until then…” said Entropy, wiping the blood and flying away.
Once he was far enough, the gravity holding Shadow vanished, allowing him to slump down and fall to the ground, panting harshly as everything in his body hurted like hell. He tried to slither forward but even that was fatiguing. He growled and whimpered as everything was starting to fade to black, the last thing he heard before fainting was of something flapping down… Rouge gasped: she had never seen Shadow in this condition before. Sonic zoomed to him, quickly checking him out. "Sheesh, never seen you take a beating like this Shadow. You ok?" asked the blue hero, not getting an answer. “Relax, Rouge, he’s just passed out. Let’s bring him back. Some milk oughta do the trick.” said Sonic, getting Shadow on his shoulders. The bat huffed in relief and flew up while Sonic and Shadow got out thanks to Silver. Once they returned to the base, they settled Shadow on a bunk bed and prepared an IV with some of Grenda’s milk in it. “Now, while we wait for Shadow to recover, we need to think of a strategy. We gotta know what his plan is and figure out if he has a weak point and how to use it against him.” said Sonic, folding his arms. “That’s a lot of stuff we don’t really know…” sighed Rouge, lowering her ears. “IF-I-MAY…” said Omega, sauntering in the middle. “HE-HAS-THE-SAME-HATRED-FOR-THE-DOCTOR-AS-ME. HE’S-PROBABLY-GOING-TO-SEARCH-FOR-THE-DOCTOR’S-LOCATION-TO-EXTERMINATE-HIM.” “Of course he would, but… how do we stop him from killing Eggman?” asked Silver. It was then that they heard some clustering from the other room. They rushed in to see that Shadow had awakened and was already trying to leave, but had stumbled on the IV cable. “Geez, faker, where do you think you’re going?” said Sonic, shaking his head. “...Outta my way…” hissed the Ultimate Lifeform. “Nah nah nah! Don’t give me any of that edgy attitude of yours. Even if your wounds have already recovered, I know that Grenda’s milk can’t restore the Chaos Energy you’ve burned out to pull off that stunt back at the pyramids. You’re already tripping on wires, what do you think you can do against him?” asked Sonic, offering him a hand, only to have it slapped away. “Don’t you dare patronize me, hedgehog… Grrrgh, he's not invincible. Just need to push him to his limit." growled Shadow, managing to get on his knees. "YOU are the one about to reach yours from a light jog faker." Sonic scoffed at him, as Silver went in. "Sonic!", Silver sneered, "What do you mean, Shadow?" asked the ivory hedgehog. "Ugghhh, Entropy isn't as all powerful as you thought. I heard him under his breath, his gravity power isn't unlimited. He's almost spent all he has to spare just to beat me up. If we surprise him and go all out together, he'll run out of energy.", Shadow explained. “Wait… Sonic’s theory was CORRECT?!” asked Silver, looking at Sonic incredulous. “Ho ho! Sonic:1; Bad guy: 0! Now, all we need to do is get there and just make him waste all of his power until he’s weak enough to be apprehended!” Sonic chuckled. “Right… Right! We… We have a chance! Ha ha! After all these years, we have a chance!” said Silver, slowly regaining his usual optimism. “Apprehend…” snorted Shadow. “What?” asked the blue hero. “After all that happened, you still think THAT is the best course of action? …He would’ve killed me if he wasn't beginning to lose his energy. If you want to gamble the world's fate on empathy… I'm not in a position to stop you faker. So, when you run off to face him, ask yourself if you'll be so merciful when he brings you to your knees while the literal weight of the planet forces you to the ground.” grunted the ebony hedgehog, sitting back on bed. Sonic scrunched his nose a bit but shrugged it off. “Alright, Silv! Let’s go get him!” said Sonic, smirking.
