Introduction
Shadow the Hedgehog and all other related characters copyrighted by Sega.
/D-A-R-K--G-E-N-E-S-I-S-/
-Written by Tylec Asroc-
The world spun with insanity. The stars were on fire; the empty peace of space was an inferno. The drop threw him out of control – his body crashed against the capsule walls with the struggle of re-entry. The world was burning – even the blue planet growing beneath his feet was red: red for rage, red for blood.
He would never forgive them. Even as he rattled about unrestrained, even now he hammered the glass with his fists and screamed. The fire around him grew so hot that every tear began to sizzle and burn from his face as vapor. The capsule was choked with the smoke.
A violent slam, and he flew into the wall, smashing his dark spines with a force that would have killed an ordinary creature. Not him. Not The Ultimate.
The pain was enough to stop his rampage though, and he curled his body tight, as if he could stop the hurt from leaking out. It flowed anyhow, through his meek, ruined sobbing. Around him, the fires still burned.
In this moment of pause, he knew what had to be done, and he vowed to the fire and the smoke and all of the darkness that he would do what she asked – nay, what she commanded! For his lady, for his love – he would kill them all.
Every last one. All for you. Maria.
The name brought back the righteous anger, the overpowering rage, and he exploded. His fists slammed into his container. His voice called her name.
MARIA!
Reality returned with a seizure's jolt and a pain of whiplash. His eyes filtered in the walls of Prison Island. His lips still screamed her name, he realized, and he clamped his mouth tight. The muscles of his jaws clenched, but they could not hold. He could still see her – it would not go away, and neither would the pain he knew.
He let it out – head into his lap, tears onto the floor. Gerald Robotnik fell to the floor and cried.
"Christ, he's screaming again."
They could hear it echo down the sterile, metal hallways; their footsteps kept time for the tortured howling. The younger one twitched at the shrieking – as if those notes of agony were plucking his heartstrings – but Professor Edward Cliffs did not slow his pace, nor did he look back at the scientist accompanying him.
"You can't save him," the young one – Howards – offered. "Every day his mind comes closer to breaking. Listen to him!"
Cliffs only continued to swing his arms and arch his back and stride like a man of great importance. His mind was set as the fate of he and his companion. "He functions well enough in the labs," Cliffs countered.
"On a technical level, yes, but – Cliffs, he's going insane! One minute he's with you, the next he's five years back and throwing a fit! He couldn't adapt to Prison Island, and now he's paying the price. He's dead."
"We're all dead, Howards. We don't exist. We're just ghosts lingering around unfinished business; memories of a time long past; spirits lost in the fog of time." He gave a smile – scientific brilliance and a poet. "We all died the day these apes," he cocked his head at their stony-faced guards, "made there little jaunt aboard the ARK with live ammunition. Wretched meat-bags."
Howards gave a noticeable twitch, as if bracing for a rifle butt over his shoulders, but the guards just continued their lock-step marching. "It was a meteorite," he reminded Cliffs. "The ARK was ruined after it struck."
"Oh, you've certainly adapted," Cliffs sneered from his lofty height. "They don't care what we say, Rat, just as long as we can't get out."
Through the corner of his spectacles, Cliffs could watch the man grow red. It made him smile and push his nose higher. Howards was the Rat among the ARK survivors. A rat because he scurried about unquestioningly like a well-trained lab specimen, but for Cliffs, it was more personal: Howards was the reason he was still on Prison Island – this forsaken rock of weapons research – and not scuttling out of a drainage pipe and swimming for the freedom of the mainland. Rat indeed.
The vermin raised his neck, trying to reach the height of his colleague's proud stature. "I happen to have a healthy respect for authority."
"They've broken you so thoroughly, all the kings horses and all the kings men couldn't put you back together again."
"Nursery rhymes? You're starting to sound like Gerald."
Cliffs shrugged. "Keeps a man sane to have a hobby: Gerald makes up his songs; you brownnose; I imagine ways out of this hell-hole."
"Concocting another redundant 'escape plan', Edward?"
"None you need know about."
They passed the final security door and entered cellblock C5. Now there were no barriers to keep out the sobbing. The Rat clasped his palms over his ears, and Cliffs merely continued, unfazed. If you only knew, Rat, he thought, smug in his superiority.
The military kept their kidnapped minds isolated in groups of two or three, but Gerald Robotnik was the only one to endure solitary confinement. There was a single barred alcove in this room of concrete, rusting pipes and foul stench. The Rat shivered noticeably in the damp cave of the banshee.
"Five minutes," barked one of the stiff guards in green army uniform.
If Gerald was dead, Cliffs thought, then what did that make these lifeless drones who escorted them to and from laboratories? The only proof of life were the fleeting smiles that arose when they beat him. It was almost worth the pain to see them unmasked, these mighty lords of life and death.
With a dainty tread, Edward stepped up to the howling cage while Howards sulked over his shoulder. "He won't understand you," the young man griped. Cliffs shushed him. The sobbing had reached a lull and the speaker was gasping up all the air he had neglected in his anguish. A shadow was sprawled in the corner of the cell. Cliffs leaned his head towards the bar, hands folded behind his back as if he were bending down to the vox on a ticket booth. He spoke clearly and slowly. "Gerald?"
The mutterings ceased in an alarmed hush. They could see the figure draw its body up tightly. "M… Maria?" it asked.
"No."
There was more movement from the back of the cell. The figure was sitting up, knees drawn to its chest and scrutinizing the visitors.
"Sasha?"
"Your wife is dead, Gerald. She passed away twenty years ago. Cancer."
The figure whimpered and broke down into crying again. "Sasha… no, no … I KNOW WHAT THAT MEANS! I'M A DOCTOR YOU … You… treatments … were working … Should have lived… should have…"
"Gerald, we are on a limited schedule…"
The prisoner pulled himself together instantly. They caught the glint of dark glasses observing them. "Iyyyvo." the voice beamed with a hiss of pleasure.
"Ivo lives in Starlight City, Gerald. This is Prison Island."
There was still no connection. "He's going to be something, he is," the voice babbled absently. "Brilliant boy. Told him to study hard. Learn everything. Science, m'boy holds the key to our future. To our happiness. To perfectio…"
"Gerald, it's Edward Cliffs: your friend. The Rat is here too." Howards scowled lividly.
"They would be sooooo happy. ……."
"Gerald…"
Sadder now. Scared. "No. Not happy. Came. Killed. All gone." He inhaled through his teeth. "They always want to die," the voice remarked with sinister bite. "Find a faster way. No one wants to … I could have saved her! Progressing. No. No. Gone. All gone."
Cliffs sighed angrily. This is not the time, Gerald. He needed some solid bait. "I'm going to see Shadow."
The caged man choked on his own breath. He coughed and gagged violently on his dry throat. Cliffs wondered if there was any spit left in those glands, parched from sobbing daily and screaming nightly. But when the man was finally done, and settled comfortably against the back wall, he did not speak again.
Cliffs continued in a casual manner. "I've been given security clearance for a visitation Gerald; I'm going to see him tomorrow. Would be nice if you could come along."
The figure leaned his head back in the corner and looked at the ceiling, cooing and mumbling so very softly. Cliffs looked back at Howards, who looked at his watch and tapped it smugly. They were due soon.
"One minute," barked the guard.
Cliffs spun back at the cell. "Gerald, you have to give me your answer now. One o'clock, tomorrow."
Howards rolled his eyes and tugged his arm. "You've over-stimulated him, Professor. I doubt he'll wake for an hour now." He pulled his colleague away, and Cliffs was so dejected, he lowered his head and let the rodent lead him away.
"One?"
Cliffs ripped the hand away and sprung at the bars. "One o'clock, Gerald. Tomorrow. I'll come with guards and I'll take you to the hospital wing."
"One." This time was for confirmation.
Cliffs nodded and tried to keep his face in the detached calmness of the elite, though his muscles longed to express his immense pleasure. "I'll see you tomorrow then."
He turned to walk away. "Wait!" A thin hand shot through the bars and brushed at his heel. Cliffs turned swiftly and dropped to his knee. Gerald had crawled out of the corner and was stooped at the front of his cage.
Cliffs hadn't actually seen the man for months; they worked different projects, different scientific fields and Gerald's growing behavior problems had cost him many hours alone in this cell. Cliffs heaved a gasp.
He looked wretched. Gerald was no longer a man of science – understatement: he was no longer a man at all! This was a wild beast hunched over the door of his cage! His bald head had grown a whispy mane down the back of his neck; his tightly drawn face was coloured with stubble. His moustache – once a distinguished handlebar, its length his trademark – had grown into a crazed gray pushbroom: tangled, sagging and fraying from where it was shoved under his hawkish nose. The skin on his face was so sallow and tight; it transformed his visage into a skull with hard cheekbones and prominent dents above his ears.
A hand was reaching out for Cliffs, and the physicist backed off as he saw the decaying claw with is bulging veins and wrinkled knuckles and outgrown nails. The sight, the stench, was overpowering! He was suddenly inclined to agree with the Rat's opinion on Gerald's mental state.
The prisoner made another grab and caught Cliffs' jumpsuit, pulling him to the bars until their noses touched. Cliffs went green. Howards was yelling something at the guards. Gerald had dropped his glasses and two beady, black eyes stared out of that wasted Death's head, where every glistening pore was visible as a serpent's scales.
"You're a fool," his gravely voice whispered ever so carefully. "You've made this a last-minute rush," he said, threateningly and sanely. Cliffs blinked and stared, so totally unprepared for this scolding. He was about to remove the withering hand, and let his colleague know the burden of getting any clearance to the med wing, but Gerald gave him a knowing wink, and his eyes pointed to the guards behind them. Then he planted a wet smack of a kiss on Cliff's nose.
Hands grabbed the physicist's shoulders and dragged him to his feet. "I love you, Sasha," Gerald babbled, stretching his clawed hand through the bars and waving as his mind wandered into the past. "Oh, don't cry, don't cry," he cooed. "I'm only gone for a month, just a silly symposium. Posium. Poohhh zeee ummmm!"
Back in the hallway, Cliffs dusted himself off like a haughty socialite and fixed his glasses back on his nose with impeccable refinement. Howards was breaking into fits and giggles as the guards pushed them away.
"Cliffs, I trust you'll contain yourself. It will only be a month after all."
"Do be quiet, Rat," he returned, nose back up in the air.
"Of course, Mrs. Robotnik," he sniggered. "Ah, well now – you've got Gerald to come along on your little play date. I hope you're as satisfied as I am."
Cliffs just stared the Rat right in the eyes. The contented smile on his face was growing to such unbridled joy that his visage stretched in a mad ecstasy to rival Gerald's happy moments. "Howards, if you could find a man happier than I – well, I would go back to the ARK, race into the control room and fire the Cliffs Cannon."
The Rat smirked, still enjoying his moment of triumph. "You know old chum, we've really got to do something about that name. Cliffs Cannon … ugh!"
Edward smiled and nodded, his eyes darting up now and then at the ventilation ducts.
Gerald waited for the army grunts departure and the familiar lock, click and clank of the doors. "Finally," he sighed with a voice much changed from his rambling idiocies. This was an aged voice of reason.
He sat himself down at his cot and wriggled out of his splotched lab cloak, then his rancid turtleneck sweater. It was disgusting to have to wear those rags day in and out, working under a stench that grew with every day's added perspiration, but he had to endure. Had to keep up his charade. To groom or bathe demonstrated too much sanity; besides, no matter what his state of cleanliness, he still felt a constant filth hanging about. He spit and wiped clean the lips that had kissed that contaminated creature.
The sound-minded professor looked at his exposed forearm, long since shriveled and bulging with veins. The rulers of Prison Island monitored he and his colleagues ever so carefully. They searched and stripped him of everything when he entered and exited the labs, fearing someone might mix together a bomb, or use some wires to bring a blackout or even take hostages with a dinner knife. There would be no diabolical tinkering for the hardened scientist, no; not when they combed him down to the skin.
Gerald smiled, and allowed himself a chuckle – a rare gift when all his laughter had to be maniacal these days. Then he took his little finger with its exaggerated nail, and picked away the skin near his wrist.
After a little digging he was able to peel back the layer of epidermis to his elbow. "You're sooo smug, you kingpins of war," he muttered, secure that anything picked up would be ignored as further rambling. "Well you can break them all down: Howards – cryogenics; Cliffs – molecular physics; Cleavesdale – thermodynamics. But great is the fool who thinks he can contain the master of Biology."
With the false flesh pulled back, the professor had full access to the thin microcomputer he had concealed since the ARK raid. Flesh toned and thin as his wrists, his secret lifeline was undetectable to all scans, because there was nothing metallic to pick up: it was a completely organic computer. DNA held our genetic data; why not manipulate it to save the record of words and numbers? Once his personal interface for The Prototype and its successors, now it was Gerald's second brain to record and plot out his plans. Nearest his wrist was the display screen full of fluids, and all the way down his arm it ran like a calculator with tiny mole-sized keys that needed the careful prod of a pencil – or a nail – to respond.
Tonight was the night his work would be complete.
Scooting himself to the light's edge, he jabbed and poked the tool on his arm while mentally cursing that pompous narcissist Cliffs for his timing. There were only a few more memories to complete – aftermath where the creature would be pulled from the pod, kicking and screaming bloody murder until it was sedated – and he had every confidence in their realism. But there were some key scenes he needed to review.
He made an automatic glance at the thick security door, listening a whole minute for footsteps or voices before he proceeded. When his surveillance came up negative, he went on, moving swiftly to sit the computer on his lap and to peel loose the input/output cables that looked so much like blue veins with round, dish-like tips. Ever casting furtive glances outside his cell, he gathered his straggly hair out of the way and stuck the nodes to his skull – one above each ear.
Gerald took a deep breath and tried to steady himself; this part was always revolting and the pain could never be braced against. Best to be quick. He shoved his finger into a button, gasping as his body went rigid and his brain reeled from the sudden sensory overload.
He twitched and lapped up puffs of air like a drinking animal. There was ringing in his ears as his mind struggled with its sudden extension. Though the brain felt no pain, it could make its distress quite audible through the senses it controlled. Gerald cringed as someone pushed the PANIC button on his sense of touch.
But then it was over with a swift slap in the face. He could breathe easy once again. His mind was "on-line".
Working quickly, Gerald Robotnik pressed buttons and opened data files, selecting the highly advanced audio-visual presentations he had created so feverishly and so secretively the last four years. He had to check that these were complete, these moments of truth.
A final button and his body went into a limp state of relaxation, his mind balancing on the border of the subconscious. He was no longer in his cell, but panting breathlessly as he ran down a metal corridor. Gerald felt exhaustion, as if he had just run a marathon. He felt panic as well: adrenaline racing through his system.
A voice, and his nerves jumped: "Find them before they escape!" Her breath was ever in his ears; she might die exerting herself if they didn't get them!
He bolted into an octagonal room. Frosty space twinkled through the circling windowpanes. Her pale hand caught his shoulder and pushed him away to slam the security door shut. They were locked in this techno-chamber of glass and metal.
He looked at her face and his panic rose again, she was hunched over and holding her chest as if to contain her wheezing lungs. Her eyelashes flitted and she looked up at him. "You first."
"No, I won't leave you!" His voice was dark and focused, fifty years younger maybe, but not lacking any of his seriousness. It was not the professor's voice. "We go together."
Her every breath was a pain. "We … fit… too small…"
"I won't go until you're safe!"
A hammering behind him; his ears twitched atop his head though they should have been on the sides of his skull. He spun to face the door, dented and black in its center. Goodness, what sort of artillery pieces had they brought?
"Get the pod ready," he ordered. He could already hear her shuffle for the controls. His vision dropped as he moved into a battle stance, edging away from the door as their weapons mashed it out of shape. Her voice. "It's done!"
Explosion. The door burst before his eyes; smoke, silhouettes and laser sights sweeping through the entrance.
"There they are!"
"It's the creature!"
"Shoot it! Open fire!"
"NO!!"
The last voice was hers, and he had never heard such mortal terror escape her lips. She screamed as red light overwhelmed his eyes and gunshots popped the air like cracks of lighting. Her voice was all he could think of.
He thought no longer. He acted. With a spring of his legs and a flick of his toes he was airborne. His hands went over his head and his black, furry stomach came to his vision as he curled. He felt collision and a grunt and he was suddenly rebounding into the air. He narrowed in on the next calls, the next body of heat and pushed himself through the air on a jet of nitro-skates. He ducked and rammed three more men with his body curled like a cannonball and landed perfectly, observing the soldiers he'd incapacitated.
"You filthy beast…."
One was still conscious. He turned and saw the man lift his head and his arm off the floor, pistol drawing a clear shot.
He flinched. All his speed and power and he flinched at the sight of the gun. The bullet fired like blow dart, spinning through the air towards his line of sight.
"SHADOW!!"
He heard her slam the button with all her strength and he watched the glass canopy whiz down around him. The bullet ricocheted against material built to stand up to the inferno of atmospheric re-entry. His hands moved away from his eyes and groped his strange shielding. "What?"
Five more bullets unloaded in desperate fury. Four clanged against his transparent armor, startling him badly. The fifth was a bad shot – perhaps the shooter's injuries finally got the better of him – and went clear past the side of the capsule so that he, ducking his head to the side, could watch it fly past his nose and through the air and out towards the inky blackness of space; blocked by metal, reinforced windows and the blouse of a wide-eyed angel of Heaven.
Her eyes shot open. Her bent posture jerked straight and she staggered back. She sucked in a great rush of air like a newborn breathing its first. She did not fall. She had been weak her entire life but she suddenly had the strength to stand.
Perhaps it was shock, the denial that let her endure, for she looked at her chest with a slow and hazy confusion, as if rising from sleep in the early morning. When she finally reached up and dipped a hand into the dark stain on her blouse, her lips let out a frightened gasp, as if she had woken from a terrible dream. Her fingertips trembled. Her eyes widened with the terror of knowledge. Her whole frame gave a quiver and a single tear ran down her cheek as she looked into his eyes, seeking the reassurance of her greatest friend that things were not as she imagined. That this was not happening.
His face only mirrored her terror.
She fell. Collapsed on the control terminal, eyes lolling into her skull, stain running down her dress. He could not hold it any longer. He screamed.
"MARIA!"
He ran at the tube separating them. He pounded his fists and slammed his forehead at the glass; helpless to break it despite the power he had only just demonstrated. "Maria…" he whimpered.
A breath went through her lips, her perfect, pale lips. Her eyes flitted and opened; observing him with the deep sapphires had brought a thousand smiles to his glad face. He could only feel tears as she watched him now.
Her hand stirred and pushed, digging into the console and prying her body away. Her hair fell down to her face in clumps; she tried to brush away the sweaty bangs but she winced in mortal anguish and threw the hand to her chest, to press against the pain. She sobbed as she pushed herself to stand, hip propping her body against the panel, face terrorized and blanching as life dripped from her wound.
She stood though. It was as if all her life's strength had been saved for this moment, and she remained strong enough for one last thing. Her free hand brushed across the buttons, searching for the right one.
He banged the capsule thrice more and threw his body against his prison walls, tears running down the glass. He pushed his hands, he so wanted to touch her face one last time, to hold her hand and comfort her. He was trapped.
"Maria…"
Her fingers moved lower until they fumbled around a great button, and she fastened her palm around this. Her eyes locked his own, and as her body trembled and threatened to fall, she breathed his name.
"Shadow…"
"Maria, don't leave me! Don't…"
"Shadow… you have… to … go," the wind rushed out of her lungs. She glanced with torturous exertion to the windows and the blue planet below. "Go … to… the people," she spoke with shuddered breath. "Promise me … for me… you'll… avenge… me…"
Tears burned his eyes; it was as if every word were being written on the essence of his soul. Vengeance. "Maria…"
She cried in pain, and stared up at the Heavens, pleading against this great burden she had received. He pleaded with her.
She looked into his eyes one last time and smiled through her pain. "Sayonara… Shadow the Hedgehog…."
Like a broken doll, her body collapsed, mashing her full weight into the button. Then there was space and the black night of death all around him and fire burning at his feet and a great scream into the void.
"MARIA!!"
Once more, he carried her name back to reality. Once more, he struggled to control himself – they would sedate him if the screaming kept them from sleep. His eyes jumped to the door. Ears strained to listen … no, no one tonight. For now, he was safe to give in and to cry.
What kind of Monster was he that he could conjure up the unwitnessed death of his beloved granddaughter from mere imagination? Or to embellish her final moments with such pain, such long and torturous agony?
Had it been quick? Had she suffered much? He prayed nights on end to the cruel God he had forsaken that it had been quick.
Could he have saved her?
The scenarios had grown into the hundreds. There was death taxed to his soul and he would never be free of it. It was everywhere: it misted about, clung to him like rank moisture, it contaminated him, it grew into his mind like a fungus. He could not get it off. It wouldn't cut or tear or burn the least – it just remained, like a black spot in his vision, torturing him to the end.
No he thought bitterly. Not I alone. His fists clenched in wrath.
They were the Monsters, that plague of humanity. They were the ones who had ended her life, and the lives all others. Across his cot, scrawled in chalk they allowed him out of pity, was the list of lives claimed when those fools raided the ARK five years ago. The list ran ceiling to floor in two rows, the letters growing scribbled and chaotic as they neared the end.
What else were they but vicious beasts? What else but wild animals, driven by insanity, could permit the end of a child as perfect and pure as Maria? Her life had been a long, limiting sickness which found dawn briefly with the climax of the Immortality Project, only to dim into nothing because of some meddling bureaucrats and war-mongrels who wanted death swifter than the winds, and a trigger-happy grunt who'd been ordered to kill all who resisted.
It was up to him to rectify things. Project Shadow … he should have seen what a lost cause it had been from the start. Health and happiness … how far away he had been from the natural order of things. It all had to end. If not by his own hands, then by the safeguards he had schemed at for years, and which he was bringing to a close tonight.
He calmed his breathing, and thought carefully over what he had just saw, what he had just remembered. Yes, it would do. It was a horrible thing to say,but the visions would work. Bad enough he had made the thing, watched it again and again, worse that he found himself growing jaded to the sights, growing accustomed to that dead face and wondering if there wasn't anything more gruesome he could add.
He heaved an easy sigh, knowing he would never need to look upon that scene again. It would work. He selected another memory, one that compensated immensely for the suffering of his granddaughter's murder.
A flash of light and he was in a laboratory, looking at himself: not younger, but healthier and stronger and waiting for a printer to eek out a long list.
What are you doing, Professor? he asked in his second voice. The Gerald Robotnik in his vision startled and looked him in the eyes.
How did you sneak in? He cut the professor off with the toss of a green bauble. A knowing smile came to the good doctor. Ah. Practicing, I see.
Always, he smiled, gripping the emerald tight and uttering the magic words that made time and space his servants. He teleported, he froze the universe and walked about unchained from the tick of clocks. He summoned bolts of lighting above his head and escaped with a flash before they could strike. The Professor gave a little clap at the demonstration.
What's this you're working on, Professor? he asked, moving towards the scroll of printed text and figures.
Planning for the future, Gerald replied cryptically, giving a great smile. I'm creating a new emergency procedure for the colony: in the event of some great disaster – let's say something from the viral lab breaks open, or if there's a coolant leak – the computers respond by taking command of all systems. All sectors are triple-sealed to prevent any infectious spread, unnecessary systems are locked off and the engines activate to take us down to Earth for repair and rescue.
Oh, he replied, quite startled by the gravity of the situation.
Here, said the professor, tearing loose the printout and handing it to his gloved paw. This is the program in its entirety. Read it over; tell me what you think.
He skimmed it over in several seconds. Read it again, the professor urged. This is serious stuff, boy. He read again, paying focus to the graphs and diagrams that showed the colony's projected energy levels or re-entry path. Oh come now, scolded the professor, read it over carefully. Tell me if you can find the mistake I made.
He understood the challenge, and so set himself to the task with all his focus. He read every last line of code, every last diagram that would come to decorate the walls of Gerald Robotnik's prison cell and when he was done, he read it again, mentally playing out how every statement would work to adjust the ARK and its systems. He read it thrice to be sure the error appeared again, and confirmed his suspicions.
This line, right here, he pointed. It's all wrong, this part about energy requirements. To move something like the ARK out of its orbit … That would require the energy equivalent of at least two chaos emeralds, and no more than three. he stopped to grab an idle pen and scrawl on the back of the sheet, accelerating the ARK for such a time, he finished his equations, the colony would gain enough momentum to … well … it would kill everything on the planet!
But here, you've entered such energy prerequisites that we would need all seven! Providing you ever found them all, that alone would be overkill, but you've gone on and programmed the thrusters to burn too long.
Why, with that power,
The professor's eyebrows flew up above his glasses. Oh! … Well, I was hoping you'd catch the spelling errors up … here, but … My goodness! Shadow, you may have saved a lot of lives, do you know that?
The memory faded and as he returned to Prison Island, the modest blush that had been tainting his cheeks transformed into a hoarse cackle.