Ancient1: Part 3
"An Oni's Rage"

The skull of a yellow squirrel went flying past Mighty's surprised, terrified face. Without time to process the death of his friend Ray, the oni had sprinted across the forest clearing, and the armadillo was grabbed by the neck, thrashing violently in their grasp. Punches and kicks landed on their giant hand, to no avail. In a singular fluid motion, the creature had tossed them up to grab them by their legs, and whipcracked them against the nearest tree, implanting Mighty's face against the hard bark. Wood splintered, and the sound of Mighty's skull echoed through the forest, and with what was left of the armadillo's corpse falling limp, the last of the Chaotix, and the protector of the survivor's camp had bit the dust. Wrapping Ray's goggles around one hand, he planted his foot down and peeled away at Mighty's shell with a sickening squelching sound. He looked back at the camp the two of them had fought to protect, the burning corpses of the Mobian survivor's who had holed up, trying to hide from him.

It had been years since the death of Knuckles and his team, and in that time, the oni Sonic had ravaged the lands. Word spread of the blue demon, who's hunted and wiped out entire cities, taking parts and possessions of the warriors he believed to be worthy enough. Campout grounds, like the one he was walking through now, had begun popping up made by people trying their best to hide from the monster. As he walked through the wreckage, a magical being from another world watched him. "You've come so far... you're so close to the beast I need you to be" the witch smiled, her long nailed finger sliding it's way across the ghostly screen that allowed her to view her experiment. "My ancient one, my monster. I need something to push you to your limits, before I can finally complete my plans."

As if to answer the otherworlder's wishes, a being landed on the tree behind Sonic, before calling out. "So the rumors are true. You really have become nothing more than a beast. You disappoint me, Sonic." The oni's ear twitched, as it turned behind to see the sight of the ultimate lifeform, Shadow. He growled up at him, as Shadow dropped, landing near them. They both eyed each other down, eyeing up their opponent, before the monster made the first move, rushing at the black hedgehog and swiping. In the blink of an eye, he was hurtling towards the trees behind where Shadow once was, before he crashed into them at full force. He pulled himself up from the splintered wood, looking at the sneer on the being who had landed behind him. He let out a angry roar, before Shadow vanished in a flash of blue light, and appeared beneath him, burying a punch deep in his chest, only to vanish again as the monster went to the ground, to catch the breath that had been knocked out of him. Shadow continued his assault, teleporting in and out, landing blow after blow against the hulking behemoth's body, bringing it further and further to the ground, beating him down further. As the beast went down to his lowest, the hedgehog teleported to a branch again, smirking.

"This is the end, monster..." he said, as he shot himself down, aiming straight for the nape of the oni's neck with his sneaker. But as he was less than a foot away, Sonic's ear twitched, before he rolled out of the way in an instant. As Shadow stumbled from his landing, the monster let out his onslaught, and slammed his giant fist into the stomach of the black hedgehog in retaliation, knocking the breath out of Shadow in return. The beast grabbed him by the face before he could get a chance to get back into a fighting stance, and slammed him to the ground. As the oni raised his claw, ready to cave in Shadow's skull, a glowing yellow light formed in the beings hands, as a spear of pure energy formed, stabbing itself into the beasts underside, causing it to stumble back in pain. Shadow quickly got back to his feet, and with a snap of his fingers, more spears appeared around him, directing themselves straight towards the monster. With another snap, they began shooting themselves at the beastly blue blur like an artillery line, as he did his best to dart behind them and into the cover of the trees, which exploded into splinters as each one of the light spears flew through them. Sonic jumped to the highest branch he could reach, and began hopping from tree to tree, furthering his distance until he heard the sounds of shots and woods being destroyed stop. As he waited, he looked around and his mind raced as he began to put together a plan. As if a part of the warrior before had somehow clicked inside him, he began to think more like a soldier than a monster.

The black hedgehog began to make quick work of reconning the area for the beast he was hunting. And as he finally got near to oni and stopped, Sonic put his plan into motion. He went behind and kicked forward to the tree in front of him, sending it crashing down towards Shadow as he made his way to another. Surprised, Shadow dodged from out of the way of the falling tree and shot a chaos spear towards the area where it fell, destroying the trees that were behind it. As he got into a defensive stance, looking down at the trees and around the area, the monster hopped from treetop to treetop, before getting behind Shadow and jumping down towards them, quietly. He readied his claws, and swiped at the hedgehogs back, tearing at the fur and slashing into his backside, causing the black hedgehog to groan out in pain. He turned around, only to see the beast gone, as he had rushed back into the cover of the forest. Shadow reached around, to feel the blood oozing from his back, before looking around again. As he readied another energy spear, he heard a rustle coming from his right, and shot it towards the sound like a bullet, only for it to meet head on with a tree branch that was also rocketing itself towards him. As it exploded into splinters and dust mere feet in front of him, he covered his eyes, only to be met with another blow to the stomach, this time with claws digging into his chest. As Shadow tried to ready another spear and his hands began to glow, the beastly Sonic grabbed his arm and quickly made work of snapping it in two, causing him to scream out, only for Sonic to pull his hand from Shadow's stomach and stifle it by grabbing him by the face again. He threw him forward with ferocity, the black being's back slamming into the hard oak behind him, before Sonic rushed over, and grabbed him by the neck.

He slammed Shadow, again and again, into the tree in front of him, destroying the bark and cratering the wood behind him. With one final throw, beast slammed him into the wood, and tree gave way and exploded from the sheer force brought onto it. Sonic held the bloodied, beaten, near unconscious foe before him and began to tighten his grip around Shadow's throat. As he was on his last breath of oxygen, Shadow let his final plan into motion, and grunted. "C-chaos..." As he said this, the bracers on his wrist clicked open, and fell to the ground, much to the surprise of the beast, who looked back to Shadow to see them glowing with a bright red aura, nearly as bright as the Sun itself. He shielded his own eyes, as Shadow let lose. "BLAAAAAAAASSSTTT!!" With that one last word, The energy shot out from Shadow, bigger than anything he had done before, enveloping the surrounding area in an orb of glowing red energy that exploded out, wiping out the woodland area, and anything in it in over a hundred foot radius. As he fell to his feet. He looked around him at the destruction he had caused. The surrounding area was nothing but a black crater with him at the epicenter. Before long, his eyes fell to the remains of Sonic, and he walked his way over to them. The beast's skin and fur were a bubbling, molten mess, half of the monsters skull showing where his face used to be. He laid there, unmoving as Shadow grimaced down at the sight. He turned away, making his way towards the crater's edge, before his ear flicked from hearing a sound coming from the oni's remains.

He turned to see the beast's own body sizzling and glowing the same red that he had, and rushed over, doing his best to form another spear. As he finally made his way over, he looked down to see beasts entire body rumbling and morphing. His arms began to bubble and muscle up, as his body grew, larger and more monstrous, while smoke started pouring from his opening maw. From the other world, the witch smiled and began to chant, starting her spell. Shadow coughed, and waved away the smoke in front of him to get a clear view of the beast, but before he could get a clear sight of him to bury the chaos spear into the monster's heart, he looked up to the sound of thunder, as a bolt of pure light shot down to where the oni was, causing it to let out a roar that could be heard for miles as everything went white. As Shadow gained back his sight, he looked back to where the monster was. The rock where the light had shot had turned into a molten read, and as the smoke cleared, he gasped at what he saw. Towering over him, eyes glowing a bright yellow, with a third having split itself open between them, stood the giant monster, doubling twice the size of what it once was.

The beasts looked like a werehog of fire, it's furred chest and quills flowing like a white inferno, while sparks of white energy popped around it. It stood there for a good minute before letting out a yell that sounded like thunder itself, before rushing towards Shadow faster than it had ever done so before. As the black hedgehog stumbled to his feet and snapped himself away in a flash of blue light, the beast did the same in a bolt of lightning, appearing right in front of hedgehog as he fazed back into air, before swiping down and sending him crashing towards the earth. Shadow teleported again, behind the beast and sending forward another barrage of chaos spears, which exploded against the monsters back. He sent dozens upon dozens of them towards the beast, surrounding it in dust and light, before pulling out a chaos emerald, readying to transform. But before even a hint of yellow had made it's way onto the black fur of the hedgehog, the beast shot out from the cloud of dust and spears and grabbed the hedgehog by the neck, crushing it between his grip. The emerald fell from his grip, plummeting to the ground, as Sonic took his other hand and grabbed Shadow by the waist, before holding him above his head. With another thunderous yell, he pulled harder than ever, ripping the ultimate being in half, and sending his remains flying down to the ground below, as a blood and remains flew every which way from the point of release.

Sonic landed on the ground, covered in the blood and remains of his strongest rival, as his body began to change back, forming to how it was before the chaos blast. He looked over at his body, and thought about the form he had just taken. A rage he had never felt before. He eyed the glowing green emerald Shadow had dropped, and picked it up, eyeing it over inquisitively, as elsewhere, the witch began to dance in delight. "Finally!! He's become the beast I had envisioned! The time has finally come!!" With those last words, her body formed into vapors, and went into the world of Mobius, where a disgruntled Robotnik sat, as he saw from an eggdrone what had happened to Shadow. As he stood up to see the smoke forming around him, he covered his face in vain to keep the smoke from entering his body. Before he fell to the ground and began to laugh out, his own voice echoing with the sound of the witches, as his own eyes began to glow. He looked back at the oni, a smile tearing itself from ear to ear across his face as he saw the oni walking away, trophy in tote.

"Now it's time, Ancient One. Time to collect my prize."