PLEASE KEEP IN MIND THAT THIS IS MEANT TO BE A FAIRLY SHORT STORY! The aim is roughly thirty chapters or so for the main bulk of the story, not necessarily including the beginning chapters and the ending arc. It will not be a long tale like "Hero" and "Eye of the Storm" were.
ANOTHER IMPORTANT NOTE: The chapters will quite possibly be short much of the time, and each will be written as a series of interconnected oneshots. Also, I decided to edit the final chapter of EotS a tiny bit to omit the mention of Knuckles and Rouge being dead. This means that they are alive right now at the start of this tale.
~悪意~
Disclaimer: I hereby disclaim all rights to all characters (save for those of my own creation) during this opening chapter... especially for the one whose end is far more deeply tied to current events than anyone may realize.
~悪意~
REVIEW REPLIES FROM THE END OF "EYE OF THE STORM":
Hello, MelGamingPlays! Well, you're on the right track but not totally right. You'll see eventually. ;)
~悪意~
"Nightfall"
~悪意~
Lia was fifteen when it happened. Just weeks shy of her sixteenth birthday, her father went out to do some training… and never returned. As she expected any girl in her situation would do, she went out to search for him when the minutes dragged into hours and the sun started to set. He should have returned home at two, and it was nearing five now. Tardiness was not normal for him. Something was wrong.
After twenty long minutes of running and searching, she found him. Instantly, she fell to her knees, too horrified by the sight before her to even breathe. There her father sat, slumped against a tree and soaked from head to toe in his own blood. His head turned limply to one side, Shadow's once alert eyes stared endlessly at nothing, unfocused and clouded over. Both arms rested unmoving by his sides, and his favorite handgun lay in his right hand. It was completely empty of bullets.
Her father was dead. Try though she might, she found it impossible to deny. He was all but drained of blood, had been torn nearly to bits by the claws of some unknown creature. For it to have wounded him so thoroughly, for it to have killed him like this… What sort of beast could have done this? She couldn't wrap her mind around it. She could even cry over her loss. As she stood and staggered away toward home, too numb to feel, all she could think to do was call her uncle. If he couldn't help, then no one could.
~悪意~
Years had passed since the fall of the Nocturne Clan. Sonic, whose Chaos had ceased affecting everyone's aging quite a number of decades ago, stood alone in the twilight miles beyond his house. Now aged fifty-seven, just a bit over half of the maximum expected age for his race, he lacked much of the energy he had once possessed for excursions such as this. He was tired, he was confused, he was concerned… and, to top it off, it felt like he was being watched.
Something had been hunting him.
He could feel its presence all around him.
It wanted him dead.
Gritting his teeth, Sonic turned and ran. He had come out here with the intention of discerning what in the hell had been watching him for the duration of this day, but it was rapidly becoming clear to him that this had been a terrible idea. If he remained out here any longer, if he remained alone for anymore time, he would be killed. There could be no denying that. Whatever was hunting out here, whatever malevolent force was eyeing him… somehow, he doubted he would be able to take it, even if he was young again and back in the prime of his life.
There was something so… so… horrific about this energy he was sensing. Its aura alone conjured up terrible images of monsters and demons and blood and gore and death and suffering in his mind, but he strove to banish them. Focusing on getting back home was imperative. If he could just make it back there and get within the Light barriers around the building… he just knew that it would be enough, somehow. At least, for now it would be.
His only option was to run like hell.
~悪意~
Four days after his unsettling nighttime encounter, the group was struck by another loss. Due to the fact that Sonic's Chaos hadn't been affecting anyone's aging in years and bunnies aged so much faster than most other Mobian species, Cream had grown old… and passed. Looking at her soft, peaceful face in her casket during her early morning funeral made Sonic's heart ache. He was reminded too strongly of Merry when she had died, of everyone else they had had to bury up until this point. Pain was something he strove to avoid, but on this day and in this room… it was palpable.
Perhaps no one was more grief-stricken on this day than Meredith, West, and Sunny, Cream and Charmy's three adult children (all of whom looked like bunnies like their mother). Still, everyone else ("everyone" being all of Sonic's living friends and relatives, as well as all their grown children and the children of those children) was here as well, and they were all feeling the effects of the loss. But while most of the others focused on the here and now, Sonic's mind continued to drift into the past, to the loss of rest of the Meredith, West, and Sunny's family.
It wasn't as if the trio had had a very large family to begin with. At least, as far as biological family went. Right from the beginning, it had just been their parents and Vector (though he was more of a adoptive grandfather instead of an actual one). The death of their mother was bad enough on its own, but she had not been the first to die. Instead… she had been the last. Charmy had died several years before while working a case for the Chaotix Detective Agency, which he had still been very actively involved in right up until his death. No one save for him and Vector knew what sort of case the bee had been working on in Filmdom City, but it hardly mattered anymore. What mattered was that something had gone wrong, and he had been stabbed to death. His body had been found in an alleyway thanks to his communicator's tracker one week later.
Driven by a need for closure, Vector had sought out Charmy's killer. In an attempt to bring the person to justice, he had conducted his own research and, presumably, found the person responsible. He had confronted the person, but his vendetta proved fatal. He had been shot for his efforts at bringing the person down, and his wounds had later caused him to die in a nearby hospital. However, his death had accomplished what he had hoped, and the killer was eventually locked away.
Thinking about these three deaths, Sonic felt himself grow more and more tense… as always seemed to happen when he started getting upset. Who else is going to die? he caught himself wondering. And when? Emerald eyes glanced to Jet, who stood across the room from him. Certainly not you… He looked away, bit his lower lip, and quickly tried to force himself lighten his thoughts. He attempted to convince himself that everyone around him had a higher chance of dying peacefully as Cream has as opposed to violently like Charmy and Vector had. However, with that mysterious and malevolent force, whatever in the hell it was, still lurking out there somewhere… he just couldn't do it.
Looking around, Sonic again spotted Jet. Now, however, the hawk (who was as young as ever) was no longer standing alone. Shadow, whom Sonic had revived as soon as he could years back (right around Lia's seventeenth birthday), had joined him at some point. The pair were exchanging quiet words and occasionally giving Cream's peaceful form long and almost pensive looks. It was about as sad as either of them ever typically looked, and the sight of it really drove home just how sad this truly was. Still… Sonic couldn't let himself dwell on it. He had something else he had to focus on. He had to know what that… that thing was. And there was only one person he could think of who would likely know.
Mind made, Sonic walked over to Jet and pulled his aside. The funeral could and would continue without them, least for a short while. The two of them stepped outside away from prying eyes and ears. Only then did Sonic finally open up about his experience in the woods that night. He told Jet about the sensation of being hunted, about the terrible aura and everything it had caused him to think and feel, the strange knowledge that this thing had wanted to slaughter him…
With every detail Sonic gave, Jet grew more and more tense and upset until he finally burst out with, "Why in the hell didn't you say anything sooner, Sonic?!" This sort of an outburst from Jet was rare for him these days. Once upon a time, before he had gone off to join the Syxan War, it had been commonplace, but now it was not. The fact that it had happened here and now only further proved to Sonic that something about all of this was genuinely terrible.
Sonic didn't answer the question, instead choosing to just ask his own. "Do you know what it is, Jet?" he pressed, desperate for information.
Jet took in a breath to calm himself, then said, "You've been told about it before. Most refer to it by a sort of nickname, 'the Night'. In truth, it is called Malevolence. ...For reasons you likely understand in part now."
Emerald eyes lit up in shock and horror combined. "Wait, what?!" he exclaimed. A second later, he added, "Why in the hell is that thing just now doing shit?!"
Suddenly, Jet was irritated again. "Because that's what it does, Sonic. It bides its time, waits for the perfect opportunity to strike against whatever it wants to destroy, and then makes dammed sure that whatever it goes after dies in the worst fucking way possible."
"Why is it here?" Sonic demanded. "Is it because of Kethro?"
"No," Jet bit out. "It's because the fucking thing feeds on Light, draining it from anything and everything that has it. And in case you haven't noticed, there are a lot of people with a lot of Light living on this world."
Faces and names flashed through Sonic's mind in rapid succession. Himself, Silver, Grey, his daughter Ash, Sen, Sen's children North and Cage, Kohaku, Ava… His heart rate picked up. Countless possibilities of how all these people and more might soon be taken away swirled through his mind's eye like a hurricane. Oh, god… not this again… not this again… He couldn't take more horror and death. He couldn't do it. But he had no choice.
The Night had come…
And it had every intention of further ruining this day.
~悪意~
1,742 words this time. So... this is starting off on a bit of a morbid note. Uh... yeah. Hope you all enjoyed, anyway. Also, sorry for the delay in posting. Stuff happened yesterday and... basically I wasn't feeling well. Posts may be slow for a time because of that. Sorry. Also, a little side note, the linebreaker means "malevolence", "malice", "hostility", etc. Which… will be relevant for a reason that shall become extremely obvious soon. Posted (at about 1:45 p.m.) 09-27-18.