Avoid the Void

"What did you do?"

"Be careful. Sonic, wait!"

"Get that rock out of the ground!"

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Flashback, The Void

Shadow appears, holding the Chaos Emerald. He also sees the two Hedgehogs. "Sonic. Ryder." He traverses and teleports through the void to find them.

"As long as I'm around, you'll always have a wingman." Astral Figure Tails says, startling Shadow as he finds and chases the Hedgehogs.

"The forest is the most beautiful place on Earth." Astral Figure Amy says.

"I don't need the details, just tell me who to smash." Astral Figure Knuckles says.

"You may not like the way I do things but I get things done." Astral Figure Rouge says as Shadow sees Sonic and Ryder are heading towards the Red gateway and begins teleporting short distances towards them while flying. He also sees two beams reaching the blue and green gates, and the third reaching the red one.

"I may be the one who can bring everyone together, but there's only one hedgehog they'll follow into battle." Astral Figure Amy says before Sonic and Ryder fall through the portal, with a flash of white light, much to Shadow's fury. The gateway blocks Shadow from entering the Portal. He groans and struggles as he tries to break through. He is then blown back, causing him to hit a glass rock and drop the Chaos Emerald into the chasm. He then crashes onto another rock which floats away quickly, rubbing his head in pain. He looks at his hands, realizing there's no Chaos Emerald in them.

"The Chaos Emerald!" Shadow looks around, and realizes it's gone. He then comes to a realization. "Ryder's Emerald. Where is it?" He looks around and sees it going towards some rocks, but as before he can fly after it, he sees the fourth beam get hit by the rock he bumped into, setting it off course, and bumping into a bunch of rocks like a pinball, eventually hitting and snatching the Chaos Emerald and disappearing into the grey gate.

"No!" Shadow hears a voice call out. He looks around and sees a Hedgehog with short blue quills in front of him.

"Who are you?" Shadow asks, lifting his hands, preparing for a fight.

The figure flies toward him with his own shoes turning into Air Shoes. 'What? The only person who made convertible shoes was Ryder. Just who is this guy.'

The figure raises his head and speaks. "The funny thing is... I'm not sure anymore."

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Flashback End, Void

Sonic and Ryder scream as they fall into the Void. Shadow kicks a glass asteroid, which hits their backs. Ryder groans, rubs his head.

"Lucky, that rock was right there right Sonic?" Ryder said, but received no response. "Sonic?" He then looks at Sonic's direction and notices him looking at something. He follows his line of vision and sees Shadow the Hedgehog, standing before them.

"Shadow? Ugh! I don't have time to deal with whoever you are. I just wanna go home," Sonic groans.

"Home? Home doesn't exist anymore... because of you!" Shadow tells him.

With the duo trapped, Shadow dives at them with a clenched fist, causing them to yell in cautiousness. He then punches them both, causing him to blow back and land on another rock, leaving a mark. As he dodges, Shadow punches into the rock that Sonic and Ryder landed on. They jump from rock to rock to avoid Shadow...

"Whoa, whoa, whoa! Whoa! Ooh! Ooh!--" They cried out

...but slip on one of them.

"Okay, this is tricky."

Sonic sighs. "Can't you just leave us alone?"

Shadow sneaks in and kicks Sonic and punches Ryder in different directions.

Ryder flies around the Void and sees Shadow chasing Sonic. He then makes a face of determination and presses a button on the back of his left shoe and turns them both into Air Shoes, similar to Shadows.

He then aims them backwards and proceeds to fly towards Shadow and kicks him off course. He then follows Sonic.

"Alright. Forgot you could do that." Sonic said, as he hops in low gravity.

"Me too. Could've been useful when I was being chased by a bunch of Eggforcers." Ryder joked.

"Alright, gonna get back to New Yoke City. Find Nine. Heh, maybe Nine will pass through and we can catch a ride." Sonic chuckles.

Shadow appears from under a rock and flies behind him on his level.

"Ugh, you again? Let me guess, you're Grumpy Shadow."

"Isn't that redundant?" Ryder asks with a smirk.

"Shadow who needs a shower."

"Gross."

"Sheriff Shadow of Floating Rock World!"

Ryder snaps his fingers. "That's it!"

[Sonic jumps off the end of the rock. At the same time, Shadow flies up from underneath the rock. Shadow grabs Sonic's leg and drags and somersaults him into another rock.

"Sonic!"

He then pulls him up and does the same procedure again.

"I'm stuck in here and it's all your fault, Sonic! You should've stop him Ryder!" Shadow accused as Ryder lands in front of Sonic to defend him.

"Yeah, well, you weren't even there so... wait, how do you know our names? Wait... Shadow is that really you?" Ryder realizes.

"Of course it is. I'm the only me." Shadow said, crossing his arms.

Ryder tries to help Sonic up, but Shadow attempts to punch Sonic, who dodges, breaking the rock apart. "Hey! What was that?!"

"You just don't listen. What part of 'Our home doesn't exist anymore!' are you not understanding?"

They land on a rock.

"What did you just say?" Sonic asks, miserably.

"What do you think I've been trying to tell you? When you broke the Paradox Prism, you broke our reality. Green Hill is gone. It doesn't exist anymore!"

Sonic starts feeling down and guilty, clenching his eyes. "I know I caused this. It just keeps getting worse." Ryder taps his shoulder, feeling his pain.

Shadow sighs. "Follow me."

Shadow takes off with Ryder following with his own shoes. Sonic follows them, jumping off rocks along the way.

"How did you end up in here?" Ryder asks.

"I chased Sonic up the Temple Mountain and into the cave just as you shattered the Prism. So I used the Chaos Emerald to teleport out. But when I reappeared, I was here."

"Stuck between the Shatter spaces." Sonic finishes.

"Yeah. The Void." Shadow replies.

Sonic looks at the red gateway. "So that must be the New Yoke City Gateway." Lights glow on Sonic and Ryder's shoes as he closes in on the gateway. "Have you been able to see us this whole time?"

"Not exactly. When you get going fast you kick up Prism energy and it thins the veil to the Void. It's like it's opening a portal through the Gateway."

Ryder's eyes widen. "So that must be how we ended up in No Place. We ran as fast as we could and it opened a portal."

"Exactly." Shadow flies off, leaving the Portal. Sonic and Ryder follow him. "I've tracked you as you've gone from Gateway to Gateway."

Sonic sees the blue gateway... "No Place."

Ryder sees the green one. "Boscage Maze." He points to a black space down below. "What's down there?"

Shadow: "Not sure. From what I can tell, it's an eternity of darkness. That decays all life."

"Game over!" Sonic sighs.

"You said you brought an Emerald. Where's Little Green?" Ryder asks.

"It fell into the darkness. It's gone. And yours was taken to-"

"The Grim. I know. I saw Rory with it."

"So that's his name now... Rory." This reply isn't what Ryder was expecting, but before he could pry, Sonic interrupted.

"Why didn't you just follow us in?"

"You can get into those places, but I can't! With one exception. When you unleashed a shockwave from New Yoke, it blew me back to the outer reaches of the Void. And led me here. And for reasons I haven't figured out yet, this Gateway let me in. Maybe it's because the shatter space isn't fully formed, or maybe it's decaying, I'm not sure. But it's not whole."

Shadow takes them to a yellow gateway, a final gateway that none of the beams had entered.

"Like a ghost."

"So, then... what is this place?"

"Come see for yourself." Shadow flies into the yellow gateway. Sonic and Ryder once again follow him.

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Ghost Hill

They warp into the area. Sonic falls and screams. While Shadow and Ryder makes a safe landing, Sonic dives headfirst.

"Ouch. That's gonna leave a mark." Ryder winced.

Sonic groans in pain, but gets up as soon as he notices the colors of the landscape are similar to Green Hill.

"Whoa, this one looks like home!" He smiles as he explores the place, running through the Loop-de-Loop.] "The Loop-de-Loop! Hedgehog's Pass!" Sonic stops as soon as he sees Tails' lab. "Tails' lab!" He then runs to the beach, punching his fists in delight; affectionately. "Palm trees!" He hugs a palm tree. "Mmm, just like home."

Ryder finally catches up. "Yeah. Just like home." He said, feeling sketchy about it. That is until he heard a voice he thought he'd never hear.

"As long as I'm around, you'll always have a wingman."

Both Hedgehog's eyes open wide as they hear the voice. They see 'Tails' flying on the spot.

"Tails!" Ryder and Sonic exclaim as they run towards 'him'.

"As long as I'm around, you'll always have a wingman." 'Tails' repeats as he taps his device.

"Oh, Tails, I've really missed you bro. I've been so alone." Ryder said with tears appearing.

"Hey!" Sonic exclaimed, offended.

"Shut up Sonic, I'm talking to Tails!" Ryder ignored.

Sonic rolls his eyes, turns away, and sees 'Amy', sitting on a palm tree with 'Birdie' flapping on the spot. "The forest is the most beautiful place on Earth!"

"Amy!" Sonic exclaimed.

...and then to 'Knuckles', doing lifting exercises on a rock. "I don't need the details, just tell me who to smash."

Ryder shakes his head. "Hah. Nice to see you haven't changed buddy."

'Rouge' appears behind the smiling Sonic, perched on top of a palm tree. "You may not like the way I do things, but I get things done."

"Nah, no complaints from me, Rouge!" Sonic compliments.

"As long as I'm around, you'll always have a wingman." 'Tails' repeats.

Their happiness turns to suspicion.

"Uh what?" Ryder asks.

"Huh? Yeah, you just said that." Sonic waves in an attempt to get 'his' attention. "Buddy. I'm right here."

"The forest is the most beautiful place on Earth." 'Amy' repeats.

"I don't need the details, just tell me who to smash." 'Knuckles' repeats.

"You may not like the way I do things, but I get things done." 'Rouge' repeats.

"As long as I'm around, you'll always..." 'Tails' repeats again.

"What's wrong with them?" Sonic asks, backing away.

"It's a Shatter Space, you two, just like the others. A cruel version to make us suffer." Shadow explains as the ghosts repeat again... and again... and again.

(I don't feel like writing them again. You get the idea.)

An upset Ryder sits down on a rock and wipes his face of tears. He looks at his gloves and sees they look like themselves but with weird white lines on it. He then gates angered by this world and slams his fist on the rock with a Prism enhanced punch. He didn't expect that to happen. Maybe one key to his power is emotion. Just like every other ability that's hard to master. Like Super Saiyan or something. He sighs and looks down. Shadow and Sonic approach him.

Ryder gets up with an angered look on his face. "What now?"

Shadow sighs in annoyance. "Come with me." Shadow runs, exiting the beach. The Hedgehogs follow him. They both pass by 'Big' and up towards Temple Mountain, which has a long crack.

Ghost Hill Big: "No problem, Sonic."

"That's his loop? I know he wasn't the most prominent person, but is he seriously just using words that people barely care about?" Ryder asks.

"Not now Ryder." Sonic retorts as they make it to the ledge with the cave's entrance. Ryder looks at it forlorn.

Shadow firmly looks at him. "Ryder."

Ryder looks down in shame as Sonic grabs him by the shoulder and guides him  to the cave's entrance. The grid on their shoes and gloves start whirring while they walks into the entry.

"I guess that's a Ghost, too." Sonic sighs when he sees the yellow Shard revealed inside the ghostly Paradox Prism.

Ryder squints his eyes when he sees something behind it. He saw a hand grabbing the yellow Shard. Ryder's eyes widened as he runs across the cave to see who it is... no amount of experience prepare him for this. I mean, sure, there was a him in every world, but this was a ghost of his own. He didn't think he would see... himself.

What he saw was a ghost of himself grabbing the Prism while holding a ghost Emerald. It was him, moments before he was sent through the Shatter Spaces.

Shadow walks beside him. "Hm. Looks like there is another one of you. Just like there is in every other world. Why that is? We may never find out."

"So, I'm a ghost too. Doomed to see vestiges and different versions of what was once my home." He reaches out to his ghost self but when he made contact, he felt something that forced him to recoil. When he checked his hand, he saw it start to fade similarly to the other ghosts. "Oh God! I'm turning too!" He yelled.

Sonic and Shadow's eyes widen. "No! Fight it!"

The ghostly aura slowly spreads across his arm. He grabs it in fear. "No, no no no no no no. Please! No!" Ryder clenches his eyes for a few seconds before seeing his arm back to normal. "Phew. Thought I was a ghost."

"What happened?" Shadow asked.

"I just touched it and I started fading."

"Hm. Strange. Don't touch it again."

"Yeah, I think I got that. Thanks." Ryder said, sarcastically before looking down again. "I just wish that there was a way back home.

"Home. There is a chance." Shadow starts circling the yellow Prism Shard.

"Every Shatterspace contains a Shard, creates a distorted version of our reality. That means this one..."

"Has to be real!" Sonic looks down to see his shoes pulsate and glow.

"Exactly." Sonic slowly puts his finger onto the shard... "Don't! Did you not see what just happened to Ryder!"

"I wasn't going to touch it. I was just pointing at it to tell you not to touch it." Sonic lied.

"Yeah, sure big blue." Ryder rolls his eyes.

Shadow ignores him. "Here's the plan. The Ghost Prism shows us how the other shards need to be placed together. If we bring them back here and connect them to this one, this real one, then maybe..."

"Yeah. Yeah, that could work. It has to work! We gotta show Nine. He's, like, super smart! He knows a ton about Prism energy. He—"

"No!" Shadow disagrees.

"No?"

"No."

"Why no? He knows Shard energy." Ryder asks.

"He can't be trusted."

"Now What'chu talkin' bout? Of course he can! He's just like Tails. He's just a little sketchy,  and possibly not trusting, but he's still trustworthy."

"No. He's not Tails, he's Nine. And they're not your real friends."

"Dude, he's real! This is his reality. And you know what else is real? Nine's tech on my kicks and punching sticks. So back up off Nine." Sonic points his finger at Shadow's face. The latter groans. He then sighs. "Okay, look. What matters right now is that we get the shards. Ryder and I'll bring them back here and then we—"

"That's not the plan!" Shadow interrupts again.

"Wait, dude, not the plan? I'm totally confused. I thought a moment ago you said—" Sonic reminds him.

Shadow closes in on him, annoyed. "Sonic, you literally broke our world. Why would I trust you to do anything?!"

"Okay, I can see how you might think that. But—" Shadow growls, losing his patience and Spin Attacks Sonic into the rock.

"Hey!" Ryder exclaimed.

"Your turn is over. I'm taking the tech and me and Ryder going after the shards." Shadow said.

"You think I'll let you do that."

"Without your full speed you don't have a choice. And even with that hidden power of yours, you can barely control it right now. Plus, you're still spent on using the boots too much. You can't fight."

Ryder growled. He was angry, not just because of the betrayal, but because Shadow was right. He could barely run, much less fight. He needed some time to rest.

"No way, Shadow! I know what you're capable of, and that's not gonna happen! Nine and all the rest of them are real! So the only way you're taking my tech is over my dead—" Shadow Spin Attacks Sonic and knocks him down again. "You could've at least let me finish what I was going to say!"

Shadow tries to spin attack him, but Sonic dodges, running out of the cave.

"Right behind ya Sonic!" Ryder tries running but ends up tripping, and gets pretty winded afterwards. "Okay... I'm gonna need a minute. Good luck Sonic." He said before putting his head down in fatigue.

Timeskip

Along a narrow road, Shadow jumps on top of Sonic, but Sonic spins to break the hold. They both run up the Helter-Skelter and through the Loop-de-loop, trying to spin each other off. They both jump at the end. They tumble through the air lengthways, with the feet at their faces. Shadow kicks Sonic and takes his Regulator, while the latter falls to the ground. Shadow tosses the Regulator up and catches it onto the back of his shoe, while Sonic struggles to get up.]

Sonic sighs in exhaustion. "One left. Come at me, bro!"

"Nah. I'm good." Shadow turns around and reveals that he has taken all four Regulators.

"Huh? No!"

"So long, Sonic! See ya back home." He runs off.

"No, no, no, no!" Sonic peels out and chases Shadow. As he peels up, energy bolts gather around him. He loses control of his pace, sliding and wandering at various times. "What? Ah!"

Shadow looks back, grinning, before focusing ahead again.

Meanwhile, Ryder hears the two speeding towards him and gets ready to run. He won't be fast enough to run up a mountain at his normal state but his Prism state will be, just for the portal to open. He just had to remember what Rory said. Focus on what he needed to do. He then closed his eyes and focus on stopping Shadow and saving his friends. And that conviction was enough for him to activate his Prism aura again. He then looked with conviction as he ran up the mountain, just behind Shadow and Sonic.

A multicolored aura glows around Shadow and Ryder as Shadow reaches to the top of the mountain and takes off with Ryder following close behind, disappearing in an energy ball of bright light in the sky. Sonic has a glowing aura around him as he tries to warp, which flickers. As he takes off at the top of the mountain he loses momentum.

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The Void

Shadow warps out of the portal victoriously, grinning at the prospect of saving his world. But then he hears a sound from behind him.

"Shadow!!!" Ryder calls out as he flies at full speed towards Shadow, just before deactivating his aura to conserve the little energy he was able to re-attain.

"Too late. I have the tech. Now I can enter the gateways and save our home. You can come too you know." He tries to convince him.

"Not without Sonic!" Ryder then reaches Shadow and launches a kick,  but is caught.

"So be it." Shadow then grabs Ryder by the neck, intending to punch him out of consciousness, but is interrupted when Sonic, out of nowhere, tackles Shadow, taking Ryder out of his grasp, and pushing him against the rock, which is piled onto by other rocks. The rocks then fall away from the two hedgehogs. Ryder uses his Air Shoes to dodge and then flies to follow Sonic.

"Give me back my te— Aah!" Shadow punches Sonic and breaks free of his grasp. They both crash land onto a long flat rock. They continue to battle each other with punches and spin attacks. Shadow then glides away in retreat, but is stopped by a rock. Rocks crash around Sonic and Shadow. The latter looks up to see more rocks coming down, then spin dashes away, while Sonic chases him likewise. They jump off at the end of the rock. Shadow lands onto one end of a long rock and spins it at the right time, causing Sonic to land on the opposite end, then jumps off, followed by Sonic.

"Come at me, bro." Shadow challenges. Sonic tackles Shadow. They return to the red gateway, which explodes and causes another shockwave.

"Huh?" Sonic said as an annoyed Shadow knocks Sonic away.

The Chaos Council's Mothership somehow arrives into the void from the gateway.

Ryder then catches up to Sonic and sees the Mothership. "Well, that's something you don't see everyday." He said.

"The Chaos Council?" Sonic said. He notices the Mothership heading towards the Green Portal. "Oh, no. They're headed to the Boscage!"

"Gotcha. Hang on!" Ryder tells him as he grabs Sonic by the arms and flies, slowly catching up with Shadow as they go after the Mothership. It makes it through the green gateway and disappears. Shadow tries to warp into this gateway, but struggles and groans, pushing against it to try and break through while Ryder catches up. Unfortunately for him, the gateway blasts Shadow back, causing him to become incapacitated, with silhouettes of various colors of light shown in a pattern, similar to Ryder when Sonic hit him in the beginning... without resulting in duplicates.

"Shadow!" Sonic called out.

"I can't reach him!" Ryder told him.

"But I can. Throw me!" Sonic said, preparing a spin-dash. Ryder raises his arms and throws Sonic at his strongest, and Sonic spins towards him. Shadow crashes into a rock unconscious, with other rocks falling and crashing around him. Sonic maneuvers from rock to rock, but the rock that Shadow is on blows apart.

"No! No, no, no, no!" After landing safely on a rock Sonic looks around for his missing friend. "Shadow! Shadow!"

With other rocks spinning and flying everywhere, Sonic looks around frantically. He stops and locks in on Shadow, falling unconsciously towards darkness. Sonic spins after him, then lunges and puts his arms forward. He grabs hold of Shadow and lands onto a rock. He carries Shadow up, away from the darkness, but soon they crash into a rock, crash landing onto another flat rock. They both get up; Shadow feeling his head in pain.

"Wooo! I am exhausted!"

Ryder slowly lands like Iron Man with a smirk. "All in a days work for the blue blurs am I right?"

"Yeah." They high-five.

Shadow groans while he's in pain. Sonic perches onto a small rock, crossing his legs as Ryder leans his arm on Sonic's shoulder with a grin.

"You're not dead. You're welcome. On the bright side, I'll get to hold this over you forever. Oh, and, er, I'll take my tech back."

Shadow looks at his gloves with an angry grumble. He realizes his regulators are missing. An electronic zap is made as Sonic wears the Regulators on his gloves.

"Ha-ha, got ya!" He shows off the other two Regulators on his heel, giving Shadow a thumbs-up, before sitting down on a small rock.

"Rrr, I don't understand! I thought the tech would get me through the Gateways. Why didn't it work? I saw Nine give you the tech. In the lab, you kicked up the prismatic energy when you ran fast and crossed over into the Void. I just assumed it was the tech. But it's something else... it's you."

"I guess that makes me kind of special, right?"

"Ahem." Ryder fake coughs.

"Okay, we're special."

Shadow grumbling and shaking his head says: "The only way to fix the reality you shattered is if we... work..."

"Together./?" The trio all say at once. Shadow groans disappointed.

"Wow. Coming from you that's, well, not like you at all. Man, you must really hate having to admit you need us."

"You need me!"

Ryder shrugs. "Yeah, that's true... but-"

"not as much as you need us." Sonic finishes as he jumps backwards off the rock.

He falls down and accesses the green Gateway, while Shadow watches. Sonic lands on the entry to the Green Gateway and gives him a thumbs-up as he enters the gateway.

Before jumping after him, Ryder turns to Shadow. "Before I go, I gotta ask, how do you know Rory?"

Shadow grumbles. "He was here when I first arrived. He was another you but... there was something different about him. He's not like the others. When I found him, it was like he had no sense on who he was anymore.

"Hm. Probably from being in the Grim."

"But I saw one of the beams doppelgängers go into the Grim, but he appeared behind me afterwards. And I don't think he teleported behind me."

Ryder furrowed his eyes. "Wait, so you're saying he's not from the Grim? Then what happened to the guy who did?" He wondered for a moment. "Looks like we have another mystery to solve. Who really is Rory the Hedgehog." Ryder then jumped off the rock, leaving Shadow to his thoughts.

'Hmm, Rory the Hedgehog. What're you up to?'

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Boscage Maze

Sonic warps through the Portal and spins down onto the wooden deck. He runs and looks up at the roaming Mothership.

"Oh, no. We won't let you down, Shadow. Together, we're gonna fix this."

Ryder lands next to him. "Then what're we waiting for? We gotta go fast!" They then start speeding together to the jungle.

Thank you for waiting Ladies, Gentlemen, and those of unspecified genders. I told you that this story was going to be unharmed. Sorry it took a bit of time though. I was also working on my next Luck of the Irish story. But hey, now you have a new thing to focus on. The Mystery of Rory the Hedgehog. Oooh~

Anyway, it was nice talking to you, but it's late and I gotta go to bed. I'll see you all soon for the next Irish chapter. Feel free to check it out.

Drift Out!