Soul Eater but it's Sonic

Chapter 56

Approximately 52 years before the kishin's reawakening.

"I wonder why there's a human here. You must be important," Zero assessed.

"Who are you?" Maria asked with worry.

Zero appeared mildly amused. "You're not going to introduce yourself first? That would be the polite thing to do,"

"You shouldn't be here,"

Her astute accusation was ignored.

"A black arm series weapon," Zero's voice was pointed. "There's one on this island. Where is it?"

Maria took one step back. "I don't know what you're talking about,"

Zero pointed. "We might need a hostage. You two, take her and let's move on. I'm sure Robotnik has plenty hidden here,"

Before any of the jackals could make a move at Maria, the sound of someone leaping from a boulder came. Shadow landed in the middle of Zero's group with his right arm as a curved blade. It was coated in blood. The head of one of the jackals landed beside the hedgehog immediately after.

"Maria, run!"

Shadow jumped into Zero, stabbing his torso then ripping away just as fast. One of the other squadmates tried throwing a punch. Shadow responded by shifting part of his arm back to normal while keeping his forearm and hand as a blade. The punch was easily dodged. The jackal who had attempted the strike soon found their arm had been removed. Shadow swept their leg and punched his opponent's throat with his pointed metal hand.

The remaining meister swung a curved red sword to catch Shadow from behind. Blades collided. The jackal swordsman gasped when he saw another curved scythe blade protruding from the back of his opponent's head. Shadow had turned back just enough to judge the swordsman's angle of attack, then generated another blade to block.

The jackal swung again, so the black hedgehog rolled by them. The meister fell on the ground. They'd lost balance from having both legs cut off at the shins. Shadow, with his arm back to being a full blade, stabbed the sword before they could fully leave out of weapon form. The last squadmate fell.

Zero got up, much to Shadow's alarm. His wound was gone.

"Oh god that's nasty," Zero shuddered. "You really are a Black Arm weapon, but I've never encountered one with such a disgusting wavelength,"

He held out his arms and summoned more distorted copies of himself. Their limbs were jagged and stretched; they soon swiped at Shadow. He hit back at them with his blade. Just as quickly as the first round had been dispersed, more were forming, so Shadow jumped back. Being outnumbered again didn't give him much to work with. Also, fighting an unknown opponent with magical abilities was risky. After seeing additional duplicates appear, then run off in the same direction Maria had gone, he left as well.

Zero's continuously spawning illusions gave chase. He began following until a hand grabbed his leg.

"Zero..."

Zero glared down at the jackal who just had their legs segmented.

"He created new blades..." The meister whimpered. Delirium from the blood loss weakened his speech. "I'm hurt,"

Zero kicked the swordsman off. "I warned you that it would be powerful. Meisters are so useless,"

Zero let his squadmate bleed out while he tapped into more of the phantom ruby's power.

Shadow quickly extinguished every illusion he met on his way back to the ARK facility. He found the door Maria had used. It was sealed tight, but the attached keypad would allow him inside if he typed the appropriate password. Problem was, there were magical doppelgangers clawing at the door, and another group that would catch up once he tried typing in the code.