A New Beginning

[Shadow]

Shadow growled under his breath as he watched Sonic casually (at least by Sonic's standards) outrun and avoid his Chaos Spears, all the while circling the black hedgehog. "Hmph, they're better at it than you give them credit for. Who knows? Maybe they'll... surprise you!" At the words "surprise you" Shadow summoned and launched another barrage of Chaos Spears. However, these flew at Sonic from the opposite direction of the original volley, so that Sonic was simultaneously running from and running into the two volleys.

Of course, Shadow was certain this wouldn't phase the Blue Blur in the slightest, and he would probably jump over them so they'd hit each other and cancel out. With that knowledge in mind, Shadow leapt into the air and curled into a ball once more, spinning in place for an instant before launching himself in a homing attack at Sonic.

[Sonic]

'Even Shadow wouldn't be as predictable as Eggman, I'll give him that much credit,' Sonic thought as he saw the second set zooming in from the front. No way it was that simple, as his previous thought indicated. 'Let's see what he's got!'

Sure enough True Blue leaped up at the last possible second and let the waves of energy annihilate each other, just as Shadow anticipated. Seeing the homing attack coming his way Sonic was happy to just get the chance for some contact sport. He curled up as well Shadow was going to hit him long before he'd be able to get enough momentum into a homing attack to counter the Ultimate Life-Form's and said science experiment knew it. Instead Sonic's body and its blue swirl of air suddenly created a sharp noise of slashing air as a wave of pure white washed over him. The old Insta-Shield created a buffer of air pressure at the moment of impact, absorbing what of the blow Sonic's own low-power spin couldn't against Shadow high-power one. Both of them were knocked away much like if they had collided, though with less force imposed upon each other.

"You still stiff from your nap, buddy?" Sonic asked in challenge as he landed again. "That send me flying nearly as far as I thought you could."

[Shadow]

Despite the relative failure of his attack, Shadow was smiling as he flew back and landed on his feet, skidding only a couple of inches. "Hah, you haven't seen anything," Shadow boldly declared with a cocky sneer. "I'm not even going all out yet!"

In an instant Shadow was swallowed up once more by a quick flash of light, reappearing in the same instant behind Sonic. The Ultimate Life Form then planted his hand firmly onto the ground and spun on it, one leg out in a sweeping slice intended to knock the speedster off his feet. In a fluid continuation of the motion, Shadow twisted and flipped forward, pushing off of the ground with his hand and bringing his foot up into the air so that the flip brought it down in a hard axe kick, right where Sonic's head should be.

[Sonic]

The one problem with Shadow's plan: Whenever people disappeared in movies or comic books during the 50 years you-know-who was sealed away they always seemed to think right behind their enemy is the best place to show up again. Because of this and because he'd done exactly the same thing to Slick two weeks ago, this target didn't need the ability to perfectly sense Chaos energy to predict where the danger was going to come form next. Shadow's opposition already had an inkling of where to look for the fellow speedster. The black hedgehog's sweep kick met nothing as the blue one, without even looking behind himself, pulled his feet up of the ground right before connection and flipped backwards, sending the front of his right leg out and down into an inverse axe kick onto Shadow right in the middle of his own intended shift into one.

[Shadow]

Shadow grit his teeth as he felt Sonic's kick land. He was in mid-twist, so there was no way he could avoid his blue counterpart's kick, and he grunted as the kick knocked him forward on his face.

Not one to stay down for long, Shadow flipped back up to his feet and spun in place to face Sonic, fangs bared and anger clearly etched into his features. "GRAAAH! How about this then?!" Shadow roared, shooting forward on a burst of wind from his Air Shoes, fist out in a rocket punch similar to the one he had used to fake out Sonic before.

[Sonic]

"Yikes!"

Sonic actually looked surprised, though not exactly scared, as Shadow rocketed forward. It seemed landing the first "point" of their match had ticked off the older hedgehog. An inverse axe-kick wasn't exactly the most elegant move one could make, so Sonic was hardly back in a ready stance right away himself, so it was a good thing he and Shadow both had to "get up" before their next exchange or else he'd have been a sitting duck. Still, Shadow was just too close and too fast to make a clean getaway. Exchanging a punch for a body blow Sonic managed to glaze by the side of Shadow's fist but ended up having to absorb the impact of the Ultimate Life-Form's powerful body anyway, using his his two arms over his own torso as his protection. It knocked a fair bit of wind out of him and it was all Sonic could do to kick out with both feet after the impact to hopefully make more room between them and toss Shadow's flight off-balance long enough to counter in mid escape-flip with his own Homing Attack.

[Shadow]

Shadow grit his teeth as he hit Sonic heavily, knocking him off balance long enough for him to stumble and roll off to the side opposite Sonic, further increasing the distance between the two. Luckily, thanks to Shadow's naturally higher endurance, the black hedgehog was not as winded as his blue counterpart; however the tumbling roll made up for it in it's own turn, as even when Shadow managed to regain his balance and roll out onto his feet, hands to the ground to stabalize his slide, he didn't have enough time to properly defend himself from Sonic's homing attack.

Instead, Shadow had barely enough time to roll out of the way to the right at the last minute, so that Sonic would hit right where he had been only milliseconds ago. But even if Shadow was presently finding it hard to fight on his feet, he was having no problems with thinking on them, and he remembered that generally a homing attack resulted in a slight bounce on impact. Hopefully it would be all the black hedgehog needed as he flipped onto his back, holding himself up on his hands and pointing himself feet-first at Sonic before firing a single powerful burst of air from his Air Shoes. If Shadow was right and Sonic was in the air from the bounce-back then the powerful burst of wind would hit him dead on, and while certainly doing no damage it would at least blow him back and put him off balance. The burst of air also knocked Shadow back, but as he was on his back it only took a simple push from his hands to turn the knockback into a backflip, landing facing his adversary and immedietly launching yet another volley of Chaos Spears.

[Sonic]

Sonic was gusted away after impact with the ground and ended up hitting the ground rolling instead of trying to get on his feet, remaining in the Super Sonic Spin. He popped out of it and on to his feet to avoid a blast from the newest Chaos Spear and rapidly danced his way around incoming projectiles. One hit the ground to his right and created a fairly small blast. Using it as a measure Sonic tried to cut safely between two side-by-side spears with a rapid forward burst to avoid a more dangerous route but unfortunately his expectations were shattered. The blasts created by these were bigger and it caused him to stumble a little as they landed behind him. "Uh-oh," was all he could mange before another spear hit him dead-on and knocked him backwards onto his back and then flipped him onto his front. Two more were still closing in dangerously on the downed hero.

'Huh?'

Sonic seemed genuinely surprised as his green eyes opened to the world. He regained composure fast enough to realize he was still in danger though and planted both hands down to posh hard and throw himself backwards and onto his feet, away from the landing point of the final Chaos Spears.

'That's odd,' he thought, having seen the large blasts created by some of the spears he had managed to avoid. 'Shadow's Chaos Spear should have creamed me. But it didn't...'

A fresh throb from the ache on his belly reminded the hedgehog that it had hardly been a gentle breeze, but from his memories Sonic still felt like it had been a pulled punch. That certainly didn't seem to fit with Shadow's outburst, especially not with a Chaos Emerald in his hands to power him up.

"Hey Shadow, you still not going all out?" he called out from across the now clearing dust storm created by the barrage. He decided to put the worry aside for now and get back to his teasing. posing the question as playful instead of serious.

[Shadow]

Shadow growled low under his breath. He was hit dead-on with a Chaos Spear and he just... just took it?! How did he recover that fast? Damn it! Shadow raised his hand again, summoning another set of spears into existance. "GrrrrrraaaaaAAAGGGGHHH!" Shadow roared in frustration, the faintest hint of red energy crackling around him. "You want all out?! Try THIS!"

With a wave Shadow launched the spears once more, but differently this time. Instead of all of the spears launching simultaneously, they fired one by one, rapid-fire style, and a new spear immedietly took the places of the launched ones, resulting in a withering barrage of energy. In exchange the spears didn't home in, and of course it took far more out of Shadow than launching them in individual waves, but he was beyond the point of caring.

[Sonic]

"Yeah, that looks about right," Sonic said with a bit of awe at the sheer spectacle of the thing. He didn't have time for awe though, only for running. Sonic could dodge machine fire and homing missiles from the most well-built Eggman robots, but those didn't tend to crackle with what could best be described as pure anger in energy form. He ducked, weaved, dodged and jumped using his plethora of movement skills to keep out of harm's way seeing as taking just a single blow, however strong it might be, probably wasn't an option with this particular scenario. One wrong move and he was going to be toasted crispy. 'All right Shadow, let's do this!'

Sonic was suddenly up high, using a Spring Jump to rocket many meters above the top of the precipice in a mere moment. Shadow's Chaos Spears were going to aim higher and start rapid-firing at his new position soon enough, but that was what Sonic wanted. He was either going to end up defeated or not, but either way it was going to hurt.

The Blue Blur seemed to stop in mid air with his body twisted back and his arms poised to throw his body forward any moment. Shadow would easily recognize it as the start of a Homing Attack if he wasn't too blinded by his eagerness to fry the fellow hedgehog to notice, but slowed down so that one could actually see it. Normally for the two performing this prep was over so fast it may as well have not happened. This was no ordinary Homing Attack, however. Sonic was tensing his own powerful body to its highest point of effort, as if he was about to try and bring down a giant monster in one blow. Before the Chaos Spears had fully adjusted to his new position all that stored power was released.

Moving so fast and strong that a literal solid line of royal blue was left lingering in the air for several seconds later, Sonic used his highest-power Homing Attack to blast into Shadow like he'd been shot from a cannon. It was, incidentally, cannon versus machine gun as he was pelted by Chaos Spears all the way down. Sonic would walk away from this with plenty more aches a large drop in stamina, but his spinning was enough to endure for the moment and his momentum enough to muscle through without much noticeable slow-down. That was Sonic's gamble because trying this on a full-power Shadow in his mind should have been impossible, yet muscle-through he did.

True Blue wouldn't be up to fighting much longer after this... but hopefully neither would Shadow. After all, who could possibly expect a stunt like that to work?

Only Sonic the Hedgehog.