A/N: JESUS christ, it's been far too long since i’ve updated this thing. please please forgive me. i will try my best to not let that happen again! anyways, here’s the next chapter for you guys. i appreciate the reviews :D as always, forgive me if there are any typos.

i own none of the characters, they all belong to SEGA. the only one that is mine is Kittie.

Escaping.

Almost as if he was struck by lightning, Shadow jerked his head up from where he was resting, hyperventilating and trying to figure out what was going on.

Another dream.

Shaking his head and rubbing it slightly, he’d realized that he’d hit his forehead on the glass lid of a sleeping capsule. Blinking, he tried to gather everything. Was he still dreaming or was he back in the sanitorium?

The sanitorium. It was more like a prison. That’s what it was. It had used to be a sanitorium but agents from GUN had taken it over and turned it into a secret prison where they preformed experiments like mad on other creatures. Placing his palms onto the glass and peering out as much as he could, he could see the isolated room that he’d been in before...those hideous walls with the yellow-greenish color to them...the walls looked as if they were peeling, and only one light hung over the room...sending off an eerie glow. That also included the capsule he was in; the soft lights behind him shone into the room and made him silouhetted in the tube.

Heaving a sigh, he couldn’t believe he was back inside this place. He’d eluded them long enough, all while searching for Maria and Kittie...if his black-haired friend was alive and on Earth at all. Suddenly realizing that his search for Maria was already over...

...because she had died in trying to assist him to escape the GUN forces. She pulled the same stunt that Kittie had done; she had locked Shadow away from her while she held off the agents, as he fell asleep wherever Maria had locked him away, he’d woken up inside the very prison he was in now. He escaped before...but he just wound up being captured again, and here he was.

Shaking the past aside, he began thinking of ways to escape again. He refused to stay in this place and have the GUN forces end him before he found his other friend, if she was alive. He searched the inside of the capsule, trying to find some sort of release button, but he found nothing. His last option was to break open the glass himself...but he wasn’t sure if it would work or not. Balling his hand into a fist, he readied to punch as hard as he could, but he stopped immediately when he heard voices and footsteps outside his door, and he leaned back to try and look as if he was still asleep.

“--All I’m saying is that we don’t need to experiment on this thing any further! He’s enough of a threat to us now, why do we need to keep him alive after all the trouble he’s caused us?!”

“Because he’s worth more than any other creature we’ve captured before. If we can tame him and brainwash him, then we can use him to our advantage. He’s the greatest weapon that Professor Gerald has ever created.”

“And he will also be the last. The head of this organization will not be pleased when they hear about your attempts to teach this thing tricks.”

“That’s where you’re wrong. Because experimenting on him was the first thing that the commander told us to do.”

After hearing the argument outside, Shadow heard the door open along with footsteps leading to his containment spot. Very slightly opening one eyelid, he could see a couple of men standing at the sides of his capsule, examining him and then looking down, obviously typing something into a computer somewhere. The first shuffle of noise that came to his ear, Shadow closed his eye again and remained still.

“Time to wake up, Project.” One of them said, continuing to punch in an unknown code onto the panel in front of him.

Shadow had to think fast. What would he do once they opened his capsule? Should he make a run for it or should he just play along until he found out more about where he was? No, he didn’t need to. He already knew where he was at. He already knew the hallways and prison cells that remained around him. He already knew most of this place like the back of his hand. All he needed to do was to get out and continue his search for his friend.

He had to devise an escape plan quickly; his mind running a hundred miles an hour.

Finally hearing the loud ‘click’ of the hood, along with a strong hissing sound as the oxygen spewed from the capsule, the two men stepped back while letting the air gush out in front of them and the lid lift up slowly. When the lid was finally up and away from the tube, they saw Shadow’s black figure rise from his prison and carefully step onto the floor. He refused to bow down this time...he was not their slave.

“We meet once again.” Shadow looked up to see a man with short black hair and glasses on and with a mocking expression on his face.

“Damn. I’d be better off dead.” Shadow thought, mentally rolling his eyes. He’d dealt with this man before, and he certainly was a bother.

Turning his head, he saw the other who looked a few years younger than the other, and had black hair also, but it was pushed back with loads of gel, he assumed. This one was twice as annoying as the other.

“I wouldn’t think about running off again. We wouldn’t want the Ultimate Life Form to get injured again while we’re experimenting.” The older man said, looking down on a clipboard with a bored, yet smug expression.

Shadow made a confused expression as he looked down at himself to search for injuries, and he spotted one; on his right arm. He had bloody bandages covering his elbow up to his shoulder, and this made him all more agitated at the fact that he’d even gotten injured while trying to escape this place before.

“It’s time for a blood test. Now be a good little hedgehog and follow Johnson willingly, we wouldn’t want to put you in shackles again, either.” The older man said as if he was annoyed, turning around and heading for the door.

Shadow knew that it was time to act, he knew they had no weapons on them; and with that, in a solid black blur, the older man found himself face-first on the ground in a split second, shouting in pain; his nose throbbing after being hit against the floor and his eyes bloody from having his glasses shattered onto his face. Growling, Shadow pulled his head up by his hair and held him there for the other to look at while stammering and attempting to call security, Shadow threatened to ram the other man’s face again into the floor, and ‘Johnson’ stopped immediately.

“Open the door or I’ll grind his face to the bone.” Shadow spat, an enraged expression spread across his face.

Waving his hands and nodding, Johnson procceeded towards the door. “Alright, alright!” He said, punching in a code onto the small panel above the door-handle.

Shadow watched carefully to see the code he was entering, thinking that it might become useful. “23765.” He noted in his mind.

The door opened with a ‘click’ and Shadow waited until it was fully opened, looking up at Johnson, he was going to make his way out...but first...

“Oh God!”

Shadow rammed the other man’s face into the floor again, evidently hard enough to make blood spatter across the floor, and leaping out of the room before slamming the door shut behind him and completely ripping off the door-handle. Suddenly realizing what he just did, he stared at the metal object in his hand, not realizing where his sudden burst of strength came from. He was certainly angry on a good level, but he never imagined that it could increase his strength as such.

Hearing Johnson’s cries and fists beating against the large steel door, Shadow decided that he didn’t care. Smirking and tossing the handle aside, he carefully made his way down the hall, keeping an eye out for any traps. He knew that Johnson would call security at any moment, so he had to get out quickly, but with as much caution as possible. Shadow especially hated trying to move through the hallways; they were filled to the brim with smoke and steam that came from busted pipes, the walls were peeling and there were shattered remains of the tiles on the floor. The concrete looked as if it had been busted a few times, and there were stains everywhere from blood, to puke, to things that Shadow didn’t even know of or even want to come to know about.

The hallways were disgusting, and worse than the containment areas.

Being snapped out of his thoughts, Shadow immediately came to a halt when he heard footsteps and someone screaming from around the corner of the cluttered walls, and he yanked himself behind a rusted hospital bed that had been abandoned in the hallway with a couple others.

“Let me GO! I told you that I had nothing to do with it!”

“And that’s exactly why you’re here.”

“What?”

“You’re full of shit! This is just the kinda place for scum like you, little missy.”

“Even if I did know where he was at then I’d never tell you in the first place.”

“Well with a few syringes stuck in you and you strapped to an electric chair, you’ll tell us eventually.”

Shadow didn’t know what surprised him more; the fact that he hadn’t run into any traps yet...or that the voice he was hearing from the hall sounded like a female. Her voice sounded strong, but it also sounded like it was near its breaking point. It was probably just another inhuman creature that they had captured and tortured, but as soon as they came around the corner, Shadow was in more shock than before.

It wasn’t just another creature...it was a human girl. She looked to be eighteen or nineteen at the least, struggling with all her effort to get free from two of the prison’s guards. Her hair was long, and came a few inches below her shoulders, it was straight and smooth, shiny as ever. The poor girl was dressed in shabby white clothes; and a loose straight-jacket. The men were trying to get her arms folded to where they could lock the sleeves behind her, but she was struggling so much that her hands were free with the sleeves torn at the end, exposing her hands free to grab and claw at whatever she wanted.

He tried to get a good look at her face, but her hair was covering every inch of it. Her hair was so shiny that it looked wet, but it was only how soft it looked. She looked rather familar, but Shadow ignored it after not being able to see her face. As they finally passed Shadow, he began to make his way back down the hallway.

“Your little blue friend won’t be able to outrun us for much longer.” One of the guards said with an evil smirk.

“The ‘Blue Blur’ is too fast for you faggots.” The girl spat.

Shadow couldn’t help but stop in his tracks at her comment. The ‘Blue Blur’. The hero. Sonic. Shadow turned his head back at the young girl fighting the two men, and quickly made his way in the opposite direction. He hid behind the same hospital bed to listen in on their conversation, as they stopped at a door that was close to the room where he used to be.

One of the men threw his knee into her stomach, causing her to collapse to the floor, clutching it with pain. However she didn’t fully hit the floor; she was still on her knees, grimacing at the pain in her abdomen. One of the guards unlocked the cell door and opened it up, slightly giving view to a few machinery on the wall in the room. Looks like they torture and experiment on humans as well, in this place.

“I’d watch your mouth if I were you, kid. Next smartass comment and you’ll go straight to shock therapy.” The other snarled, grabbing the girl again after he’d weakened her, finally managing to get her arms folded as he began to hook the sleeves behind her.

However even after being hit in the stomach with an excruciating force, she still seemed to have some energy in her, and therefore, she began to flail like mad and kick as much as she could.

“NEVER!! I’m not a slave! I’M NOT A PUPPET! You can’t kill me! You can destroy my body but you’ll never have my soul!!” She wailed at the top of her lungs as one of them grabbed her long hair and literally threw her into the room, slamming the door behind them before she could scamper out.

That girl was a friend of Sonic’s?

After a few minutes, he began to hear wails of pain and electrical sounds coming from the room, as well as bright lights flashing through the window like lightning. Shadow turned his head away, not bearing to see the same thing that they’d done to him. Shadow refused to see any more, as he quickly made his way back around the corner to find a way out as quick as he could.

However...something about that girl made him curious. She looked familiar.

Shadow grunted in utter annoyance. This place was like a maze, a damn labyrinth. Each corner he took looked the same as the one he’d come from. Finding the exit was a bear for him in this situation. The longer it took him to find the exit, the more concerned he got about being caught. He had already come into a few close calls, each one making him more delusional about escaping the prison. This, however, strongly confused him. He’d gotten out before, and it wasn’t easy, but the first time he’d gotten out wasn’t as hard as it was now. For some reason, they seemed to have moved him to a different area than he was in last. He was still in the same building...but in a different part of it.

He was also far underground, which was why the whole place was concrete, to prevent rotting; if they’d used regular wood to build the place. It was also to intimidate the inmates and patients that were there...and Shadow soon began to feel the effect on himself as well. The longer he had to run, the more the walls began to steal a piece of his sanity.

Now he knew why it was a sanitorium, a prison. He really saw no difference between the two. They held innocents in this building. It was GUN after all. They were well known for making innocent and weak suffer to get what they want. And they will stop at nothing to do it. This place made the skin under his fur crawl. No matter where he was in this building, it all seemed to prick at his mind, and it angered him to no end. His patience was wearing thin.

Finally managing to come to a hall that lead towards a door that looked promising, Shadow had remembered to be cautious when something like this would come into view. It would either be a trap...or he’d run into a room that was filled with guards. He’d rather avoid both. Running behind a large pipe with a valve sticking out of it, he heard more footsteps coming his way, and he froze immediately. He was lucky that he was black or he wouldn’t blend in with the place at all, shadows were around every corner, and he could easily camouflage himself in between them.

Much to his own surprise; here came the same two guards with the black haired girl in their grip through the hallway. However, this time, the girl wasn’t struggling as much. Actually, she wasn’t struggling at all. She had been thrown over one of their shoulders and she was out cold. As they passed by him, he could see her more clearly; her face. She didn’t have on the straight-jacket anymore, but she was still in the old battered clothing that she was previously in. Her arms were red and had small bandages placed here and there, there were bruises scattered across her cheeks and forehead, and he only got a glimpse of it, but he could see almost underneath the back of her shirt, and it looked as if she had been struck with a sharp object there, and there was dried blood on her shoulder.

And suddenly, a thought touched his mind. Should he help her? Or leave her here to rot? He’d never seen a human being tortured in the facility before...so should he at least make an exception for her?

...Why exactly was he thinking this?

Gravely pushing the thoughts aside, he waited until they were clear out of sight, and he rushed through the door ahead before it closed. All he did was shake his head, feeling terribly sorry for the girl. Though, he had a higher priority at the moment: get the hell out of the sanitorium and find his friend...if she was alive at all.

He didn’t want to think of the last part.

Just as he’d thought, it seems that taking the first door was the right idea. Shadow had managed to find a large stairwell, and at the very top, he saw a bright red glowing box that had “EXIT” written in white letters on it. A sharp grin formed on his lips as he quickly made his way upstairs, and just when he was near his escape, a loud noise blared into his ears, nearly causing him to tumble backwards to his surprise.

The alarm.

They knew. And they would be after him any second. Quickly losing his patience, his ears pushed back in an angered manner and he wasted no more time in being cautious; he lifted his first foot and darted up the stairs like a bullet from a gun, eventually ramming his way out of the door. Stopping abruptly, he got a good view of the city he was in not too long ago...

...it looked like he’d fallen into hell itself. The skies were smothered in smoke and the clouds were no longer white, the sky was no longer blue, everything was covered in darkness. The skies rang a deep red color, causing it to mix in with oranges over the horizon, black smoke was seen anywhere and everywhere, there were buildings that had crumbled and there were those that had been completely destroyed.

...Was this really the city he was in before? It certainly looked like it. However...it seems that the place had been attacked by something. Looking around, he’d noticed that there were some buildings that hadn’t even been touched, not even a scratch on their surface as it seemed.

...Did the Black Arms aliens attack the city?

Shadow found himself speechless at the moment...but he knew that his vocal cords could still form a single word for his situation:

“Shit...”

He shook his head at the sight, and he was wasting time in staying on the rooftop of the large underground sanitorium beneath him. And with that, he darted off the roof and down to the ground in a split second, wondering if it was a good idea or not.

There were people running about the city, all panicking; Shadow figured they would be, with all the destroyed buildings and what not. Stopping in the middle of a street to look up and examine the sky for anything, he had to dart out of the way quickly, seeing a minivan shooting down the street at an unknown speed, with a fairly frightened driver. Looking back up, he still saw nothing in the sky; no demons, no aliens, nothing. Nothing but the black smoke that was spread across the clouds.

He lifted his shoe up and shot forward down the streets a good ways before he stopped again to look back up at the clouds, still scanning them for any signs of Black Aliens, if there were any. However after a few minutes of running around, seeing nothing but more frightened citizens and a few dead ones at that, he decided on one thing: something or someone was here. He didn’t know who it was yet, but he knew that something had caused all this destruction. There wasn’t anything on the surface...but what if something was underneath the city?

The sewers.

Shadow looked around and found a manhole leading to underneath the city, and he realized that it was worth a shot to see if there was anything wreaking havok underneath it as well. He quickly lifted up the lid and jumped into the hole, dropping the metal hood as it made a loud clanging noise, as he found himself dropping onto a wet concrete surface. He’d been here before...and God did it smell. He thought he was going to pass out from such a stink. Although, he had much more at concern than the reek that surrounded the circular passageways.

Pressing on along the wet concrete, he began to think. Many things invaded his mind and it distracted him. Westopolis was destroyed, now. He saw a rather interesting human girl who seemed to have associated with Sonic The Hedgehog. He saw no sign of the Black Aliens, even though the destruction of the city looked to be like their doing. But what if it was something else?

“Mommy! I’m hearing footsteps!”

Shadow stopped in his tracks after he heard a small whimper from a child. Quickly placing himself behind another large pipe and against the wall, he saw shadows on the floor of people approaching, quietly awaiting to see who it was. Almost as if he’d unexpected it, around came what looked like a homeless mother and her child, along with a couple of others that were dressed the same way. Their clothes were filthy and a little torn, their skin looked the same as their clothes. Shadow’s eyebrows furrowed at the sight.

“There were sounds coming from here!” The child said, tugging on her mother’s torn pants.

“Sounds?” The woman said, staring off into space, her eyes wide. “Jack? Could you come here?” She said as a man came around with a gun in his hands, examining the place carefully.

“Is there anything here?” The woman said, facing her head to the ground this time.

The man turned around and looked in the other direction, and eventually shook his head. “Nah. I don’t see anything.” He said.

“I’m scared...when is Miss Kittie coming back?” The child whined.

Shadow’s eyes grew wide. “Kittie?” He thought, staring at them curiously.

“She’ll come back soon, dear.” The mother said, taking her child’s hand as they all went back around the corner.

As soon as they’d vanished, Shadow stepped from behind the pipe and glanced at them from down the pathway, wondering if he should follow them, or if he should wait and focus on who was responsible for the destruction of the city. He was looking for Kittie, so should he follow them or stay put? Shadow hated having to make decisions like this.

“Damn it...” He muttered, quietly following the homeless people.

Shadow followed them and came upon a large group of homeless people scattered throughout the sewers. A ladder that led to the surface was placed in the middle of the room, there was about an inch of mucky water that spread across the bottom of the room, leading into the much deeper water that rushed down the pathways of the sewers. There were a few torn and worn couches sitting here and there, a few barrels with fires lit inside of them were placed throughout the room as well. The stink of the place never left.

“Mommy, this way!” He saw the previous child leading her mother to a nearby couch, as the older woman moved her hand about the armrest as if she couldn’t see.

...Could she?

“Oh! What was that?!”

Shadow knocked himself out of his thoughts and turned back to them, eyeing the commotion that began to erupt. He soon heard a loud whirring noise behind him, as he quickly spun around and spotted a GUN security drone readying to open fire. He darted forward without notice and shot around the room of people in a split second, leaving a trail of gushing wind to flow past them and blowing water into the air.

However, his luck quickly ran out when he smacked right back into another security drone and fell backwards, landing on the ground. He soon heard screaming coming from the homeless behind him as he glanced behind him and saw even more GUN security drones flood the room along with troops shouting orders at the people behind him. Unsure of what to do, seeing as he had about five drones aiming down on him and ready to shoot if he moved a muscle, he stayed put, not taking any risks.

And...in that very moment, a gunshot came from in front of him, and was sent directly into the drone above him, as electric snapping sounds erupted from it and it began to fall to the ground, a familiar woman leaped over the robot as if she was a cat jumping from a table. Their eyes met in a split second, and the girl seemed to recognize him, but Shadow was confused as ever.

“Shadow?!” The girl squealed as she landed directly behind him.

He blinked. It was the girl from the sanitarium.

“Who are you? And why do I keep running in to you?” He muttered, getting to his feet and prepared to make a speedy escape, until...

“I was wondering where the hell you were at...” The girl growled, cocking the shotgun in her arms and firing at one of the other drones, before aiming it at the troops who were now holding the homeless people hostage.

“What?”

“Talk later...I need your help right now.” She said.

“And why should I help you?” He asked, raising a brow.

“Because Maria would have wanted you to.” The girl replied, looking up at him.

He blinked as his eyes grew wide as saucers. “How do you know Maria?”

“That’s funny, because I recognized you, little ruby.” She grinned.

Shadow blinked again.

“...Kittie?”

A/N: did he really find Kittie? o.o lol we'll see. as always, let me know how i'm doing! R&R! :D