CHAPTER 02:

The next morning produced a rather bright sunny day as Sonic came out from his hut, feeling fully refreshed. Waiting outside of his hut was Shadow, who was leaning against the wall near the door. “Morning. Feeling any better?”
Sonic looked to Shadow and nodded, patting at the fresh bandages wrapped around his chest. “Yeah. Changed them out after I got up. Doesn't even hurt now.”
“Good. Last thing I wanted was for you to be left injured because of me.”
Shadow looked up after a moment and sighed. “At least the temporal storm dissapated.”
Sonic tilted his head. “Temporal storm?”
Shadow looked at Sonic for a moment before waving him by. “Let's go get breakfast and I'll explain.”
-
In the central part of the village, a mess hall had been set up for most of the villagers. But since most had been out all night partying, the hall was pretty sparse this morning. Still, Uncle Chuck was still making breakfast for anyone who was hungry this early, and smiled when he saw Sonic and Shadow approaching. “Sonie! Glad to see you're up and about. How are you feeling?”
Sonic grinned. “Feeling good enough to have the chili dog breakfast special!”
Chuck chuckled. “Coming right up!”
As the robotic hedgehog went to get Sonic's food, Shadow looked to Sonic. “Well I see some things never change.”
Sonic grinned as he looked back to Shadow. “Sounds like you know me pretty well in the future.”
Shadow nodded and Uncle Chuck came back with Sonic's food. “It's a long history, but for the sake of not spoiling too much, yes, we do know each other very well.” He then looked to Uncle Chuck. “Bacon and eggs, if you have any.”
Chuck nodded and went to the food warming bins. “Coming right up!”
“Cool!” Sonic remarked as Shadow got his food.
After they settled at a table, Shadow looked to Sonic. “So as I was explaining before, when I came here to your time last night, there was a temporal storm. It usually starts up when someone travels through to that point in time, but settles pretty quickly after the event. I was concerned because my sudden method of time travel may of upsetted the fabric of time. If that were the case, the storm would of been ongoing. But it seems everything is okay, so here I am.”
“Uuuh...sure! Whatever you say. You time traveled. Nuff said,” Sonic responded with his mouth full of chili dog.
Shadow sighed. “Right. Over your head. Don't worry, you'll understand it when you're older...”
Sonic swallowed his food. “Well, what were you doing that caused you to travel back in time? Sounds like it wasn't something you were planning.”
Shadow nodded. “I had to take some time to think about it, but I think I know what happened. See, I was fighting this big silvery mass of roboticizing nanobots, and I needed to use chaos energy to fry the machines all at once. But I had to get to the center of the mass without them touching me. So...” Shadow took a pause to make sure he didn't say too much. “...a friend of mine, who has telekinetic abilities, used his powers to create a force field around me so I could get to its center. And then I drew upon the chaos energy to blast those things and fry them. I think the combination of chaos energy and his telekinetic powers created a time warp that threw me back in time.”
Sonic was nodding as he ate, listening to everything that Shadow said, before he swallowed and spoke. “Okay, several questions. One, roboticizing nanobots?! You mean Mobians are still getting turned into robots in the future? Two, chaos energy? Like a chaos emerald? Three, what's this tele-whatsitis?”
Shadow sighed. He should of known he was going to slip up somewhere. It was hard to imagine a point when Eggman wasn't a threat. “Right. Just defeated the Doctor. I've said too much already-”
Sonic reached out and grabbed Shadow's arm before he could take another bite of his eggs and looked hard at him. “Shadow, if there's a new threat out there, I need to know about it.”
Shadow looked for a moment into Sonic's deep brown, nearly black eyes, struggling with what to say to him. He finally reached for Sonic's hand and began to pry it off, but Sonic seemed to tighten it. While Shadow was used to being rough-handled, something about Sonic's gripped seemed off...stronger than normal. Was Sonic THAT tense about what was to come? He looked at Sonic's hand before looking back at Sonic. “...relax. Nothing is going to happen for a long while yet. Besides, I don't even know what's going to happen for the next few years anyway.”
Sonic looked at him warily for a moment before slowly loosening his grip on Shadow and pulling away. “...how far in the future are you...?”
Shadow took a moment to think. “10...15 years I believe.”
Sonic took a moment to look him up and down. “Yeah, you must have been really little about this time.”
Shadow started to say something but bit his tongue, figuratively. Best that Sonic didn't know about his origins yet. Instead he opted to try and smooth things over. “All I know is that you can relax for a while. Take time to pick up the pieces. This is a critical time for you and your friends, and I know you're eager to scope and repair the damage that the Doctor made.”
Sonic sighed and nodded. “Okay Shadow. Okay.” He finally began to stand up with his empty tray. “Maybe we can...I donno...tour the village or something while we talk? I'm still interested in that chaos energy thing you mentioned.”
Shadow began to stand up with his tray as well. “Sure. But instead of a tour of the village, how about a run in the forest instead?”
As Sonic put his tray away, he looked at Shadow. “Run? Those are my favorite words, but-”
“-I can keep up. Just wait and see.” Shadow said. It also finally dawned on Shadow that when he wound up time traveling, he no longer had his emerald with him, so he could no longer demonstrate his powers. “Who knows, maybe we can find a warp to a special zone...?”
Sonic looked at him with suspicion as they walked out of the mess hall. “You ARE after a chaos emerald! I knew it.”
Shadow held a hand up. “Before you get any ideas about me, let me clarify this. Yes, I would like to be able to get my hands on a chaos emerald. I am able to draw power from it and perform special abilities. But more importantly, I might be able to find a way to get back to my time with it.”
Sonic had to stop in his tracks and take a moment to think about it. “...I donno about this...”
“I know...you don't trust me, let alone trust anyone to get their hands on a chaos emerald.” Shadow frowned. “But...all the more reason for you to go with me. Besides...” he laid a hand on Sonic's shoulder. “Perhaps I can teach you a trick or two.”
Shadow mentally kicked himself for saying that to him. Sonic isn't supposed to learn Chaos Control for years yet, and here he is mentioning the possibility of teaching him. He sighed mentally before inhaling and looking back to Sonic. “What do you say?”
“Well...” Sonic spoke warily, trying to size Shadow up before he finally nodded. “Alright.”
Shadow gave the smallest hints of a smile. “Good. Let's race.”
-
Standing out in the Great Forest, just outside of Knothole, the two hedgehogs were stretching, getting ready for a proper run. Sonic looked to Shadow, smirking. “You sure you want to do this?”
Shadow looked back to Sonic. “Hmph. Remember, I know you. It is you who underestimate me.”
“Riiight. Time to see if you can back that claim up. Ready?”
Shadow nodded, getting into position. “Set.”
“GO!” Sonic yelled, and the two hedgehogs raced off. At first, it looked like Sonic was already ahead, and he chuckled to himself. “Yeah, that's what I thought.”
“Are you sure about that?” Shadow asked as he came up alongside him. 
Sonic had to do a double take to see that Shadow was not quite running...but JETBLADING. His shoes had mini blasters on his feet. “Oh...OH! I see how it is! Fine, if that's the way it is, then I'll race you to Robotropolis and back again!”
“You're on!” Shadow called and suddenly surged forth.
Sonic had to take a moment to take in what he was seeing. This guy was good. REAL good. Finally someone who he could race with. Despite the uncertainty of the future, perhaps Sonic DID have something good to look forward to after all!
As Sonic ran, something about his legs were feeling heavier, but not enough to really slow him down. “I must still be tired from fighting Robotnik...” he thought to himself before catching up to Shadow, continuing on towards the city.