Sonic and all related elements © Sega, Archie, and whoever else has their greedy paws on him now. Used without permission, not for profit.
The Lion is © [Antithesis], based on Aslan from _The Chronicles of Narnia_, © C. S. Lewis. May not be used without permission.
"Thrive" © Sparrow Records; written by Peter Furler and Steve Talor; available on the Newsboys album "Thrive"
All content not listed above © 2002 Evan H. (the [Antithesis]), all rights reserved. May not be redistributed without permission.
Author's note: After conducting several experiments, I have decided to abandon my previous continuity, which I now refer to as "Timestones and Wizards and Serts; Oh, My!" They can be found on my website, but there's only one or two that would be good reads, so I wouldn't bother.
For this story: I have taken the liberty of modifying the SegaSonic continuity slightly. Station Square is kind of like Mobotropolis from the SatAM series with King Acorn the constitutional monarch and Sally as his daughter. Sonic, Sally and Knuckles are all close to 20 years old; Tails is 16. I'll bring in other characters from SatAM (and my own mind) as necessary, but I'll try not to make the whole thing too confusing. Please, if you have any serious questions, e-mail me at antithesis@madcrasher.com
Shadow smiled as he fell. He had fulfilled Maria's wish, Mobius was safe, death didn't seem to bad. He was ready, plain and simple. The chaos energy gone from his body, he was suffocating in the vacuum of space. There was no wind, no sensation of falling other than the ARK and Sonic getting smaller and smaller and smaller...
As his body fought for air that wasn't there, Shadow saw everything around him grow steadily brighter. 'This must be death,' he thought. 'I'm coming, Maria...'
Suddenly, he wasn't falling. He was standing on firm ground, breathing. The ground was covered with lush, green grass, and rolling hills could be seen in the distance. The very air seemed electrified and pulsing with light and life. In front of him stood a tall lion with a beautiful mane, a radiant face, and eyes that were gentle and intense all at the same time...
"You fulfilled Maria's wish, Shadow," the lion said gently.
"Am I dead?" Shadow asked, trying to get a handle on the moment.
The lion shook his head softly. "No, not yet. It's not time for you to die."
"What do you mean?" Shadow asked. "I fulfilled Maria's wish, I saved the people from Robotnik, I have no purpose left."
The lion smiled, and a twinkle of amusement was seen in his eyes. "Yes, you did do that, but I have another greater purpose for you."
Shadow began to get angry. "How can there be a greater purpose than fulfilling the dying wish of your closest friend?"
"You have much to learn, Shadow. You will know your purpose and your mission by the time the rooster crows tomorrow."
"But how--" Shadow began before he was cut off.
"Enough questioning; just trust me," was all the lion said.
Instantly Shadow found himself standing on the beach outside Station Square in the early morning. His hoverskates had fallen off as well as his anklets and bracelets, but his gloves remained. 'Chaos energy must have roasted them,' he thought, referring to the electronics he was wearing before. Still confused by his experience moments ago, he made his way to the city.
'They all think I'm dead,' he thought as he walked along. 'Maybe I should keep it that way for a while...'
Shadow did his best to stay out of sight. No telling what GUN would do if they found out where he was. He still felt lost, somehow. He felt like he didn't belong... he should have died... but then there was the lion... it wasn't time for him to die? Shadow felt like a ghost, fluttering around with no apparent purpose. "By the time the rooster crows..." The sun began to tease the horizon, and Shadow pulled himself into a thick tree in a small park to stay hidden.
"If only I had my emerald," he muttered to himself, but the moment he stopped moving, sleep overcame him. Lodging himself into place, he quickly fell asleep.
Shadow slept through the entire day. For the majority of it he didn't dream. He just slept, letting his body recover from the ordeal it had been put through with the fight with the Biolizard. No one in the city ever found Shadow, much less disturbed him. As the sun began to sink under the horizon, however, Shadow began to dream.
He was standing in darkness, unable to see anything. Being who he was, he wasn't the least bit shaken by it. He liked the dark. It gave protection.
Naturally, someone had to cut on the light. A blazing spotlight shone directly on Shadow. It carried such a force that he was knocked over. Lying on the ground, he tried to shut his eyes, to adjust to the sudden presence of light, but he was still blinded. He felt the light expose him for who he was and what he had done: him destroying the GUN prison, him attacking Sonic and company, him crossing those who helped him for his own ends... he saw his entire quest for revenge flash before him. He wanted to get out of the light so no one would see any more, but he couldn't move.
All he could do was cry out for help, which he did.
As soon as he did, the lion he had met before ran up to him and stood over him, getting between him and the source of the light. "Spare him," the lion said. "I take responsibility for him. Whatever harm he may have done, may it be as if I had done it."
As if in response, the light seemed to grow in intensity, but this time Shadow wasn't hurt by it. The Lion, however, was hit by it the same way as Shadow had before and was soon lying on the ground, dead to all appearances. On one hand was the Lion lying on the ground where Shadow was before. On the other was Shadow standing in the light and not being affected. In fact, he wanted to be in the light more than he had wanted to be in the darkness before. Suddenly worried at the fate of the Lion, Shadow ran over to him to check his pulse.
There was none.
Then Shadow realized what had happened. If he hadn't called out for help, he would be dead just like the Lion was now. His first question was why the lion had to die, then he remembered why he wanted to get out of the light in the first place. Before he had time to wonder any more, however, he heard the Lion give a cough and sit up.
"You're alive?" Shadow asked, surprised.
The Lion nodded.
"But... why did you do that for me?"
He smiled. "Because I can take it; you can't."
Instantly Shadow woke up. It was night once again in Station Square, and Shadow felt like a whole new person. He still wasn't sure what his purpose was yet, but he felt more alive now than he had felt since... since Maria.
He didn't really know what to do, but he didn't feel like staying in the tree much longer, so he swung down to the ground and took a seat on a bench overlooking the duck pond. At exactly the same time, a teenage overlander took a seat next to him. While Shadow looked out over the calm water happy to be alive, the teenager seemed quite the opposite. He sighed continuously, and his face was weary and downcast.
At first Shadow wanted to run away for fear of being recognized, but something inside him told him to stay. After seeing the teenager's agitation for at least a minute, he ventured to ask, "Hey, are you all right?"
The teen turned to Shadow and answered, "Depends. Am I healthy? Yeah. Do I feel okay? No."
After a moment of silence, Shadow asked, "Do you... do you want to talk about it?"
The overlander nodded. "It's my mom. She... she loves me like nothing else. That's not the problem. She just... doesn't understand me very well. She has all these plans for me, wants me to be a doctor or a lawyer, and..."
"And you don't?"
"Well... it's not that I don't, it's just that she has all these expectations for me that I don't think I can live up to."
"Have you even tried?"
"Oh, yeah! Maybe I can live up to them, but... I want to do more than study my whole life. I want to get out, take a vacation where I don't have to learn something, be somewhere just for the fun of it." He turned to Shadow and held his hands in front of him to emphasize his next statement. "I want to play an instrument! But no, my mom always insists that I take this extra math course or join that club so it will look good on my resume... everything has to be for some reason in her book. I can't do something just because I think it's fun."
A small silence followed. Finally, Shadow continued the conversation. "Have you tried asking her for instrument lessons or if you can pick one up?"
The overlander rocked his head so that he neither nodded nor shook his head. "Yes... but she always says I don't have time for that sort of stuff and I don't take it any further."
Shadow thought. It was a puzzle. He was good at puzzles... "Have you told her how you've been feeling?"
"Not really... I mean, it seems like I'd be hurting her if I did..."
"But you appreciate what she's doing for you, right? You appreciate how much she loves you, right?"
"Well... yeah. She is my mom, after all..."
"Then what are you afraid of? Tell her how much you love her, but say that you're going to have a nervous breakdown if you don't get a break soon in one way or another. Tell her something like that. Make sure she doesn't get the picture that you're ungrateful!"
The teen thought it over. "Thanks," he said finally, his mood seeming to brighten just a little bit. He got up to go, but he stopped to ask Shadow one last question. "Hey, you from around here?"
"Kinda... sorta... no."
"Do you... have someplace to sleep?"
Shadow motioned to the tree he came down from. "The tree."
The teenager chuckled. "Here," he said, reaching into a pocket and pulling out a 100-Acorn bill. "I don't have much use for this. I was going to buy some video game thing, but it sounds like you could use it more than I could."
Shadow took the bill with little reluctance. "You're a nice kid, you know that?"
"Yeah, my mom says it all the time."
"Then you should be able to have a decent conversation with her."
The teen smiled. "Oh, it's getting to be fall soon, so you might have a need for this," he added, taking off his trenchcoat and handing it to Shadow.
Shadow whistled. "You sure your mom won't mind?"
He shook his head. "Nah, I got another one exactly like it at home." He walked off towards the residential portion of the city, leaving Shadow alone.
Shadow tried on the trenchcoat. It had a hood on it, making it more like a robe that those wizards always seemed to wear in fantasy movies. Pulling the hood on, Shadow slunk into the darkness, seemingly invisible.
The first thing he did with the money was buy the least expensive burger he could find. He wasn't that hungry, but he wanted to make sure he honored the teenager's wishes by buying some food with it. The second thing he did was walk into an office supply store that was open late and buy a portable electric typewriter. 'I'll need this if I'm going to write notes,' he thought. It wasn't that heavy and didn't take up a lot of room, so Shadow was able to slip it in one of his pockets.
As he was walking around aimlessly, just thinking about things, he passed one house where the lights were still on. He glanced inside and found the overlander he was talking with earlier talking with someone who was apparently his mother. Both were smiling. The teen spotted Shadow through the window and waved slightly. Shadow waved back and walked on.
Seeing them there brought a sigh of relief to Shadow. He hadn't given the kid bad advice; in fact, things were now probably better for him. Suddenly, Maria's wish came back to him: "Give them a chance to be free." At first, Shadow had assumed that she meant from the doctor's Eclipse Cannon. Now, he realized, that there was more than one definition of freedom; there was more than one definition of imprisonment. He had just given that overlander a chance to be free... was he supposed to do it for more people?
As he walked he saw more people. Many were happy, but most were not. They either looked anxious about this or worried about that, yelling into their cell phones about this or complaining about that. Shadow's overall impression was one of pain and misery, and it could all be gone if they would only slow down long enough to see where they were...
Instantly everything that he had seen in the past day made sense. The Lion, the overlander, Maria, everything clicked together. Running back to the park where he had slept, he sat down on a bench, pulled out his typewriter, and began to write. Thoughts came faster than words, and his hands struggled to keep up with his brain.
I am only now beginning to understand how much I've changed.
I know what my purpose is now. Every minute it becomes clearer and clearer. The people of this city spend their whole lives running in their own little circles and they never see what goes on around them. They spend their days digging around for diamonds and gold, and they don't know anything else... they don't know they're breathing bad air... It's my job to show them there is more to their lives than this. It's my job to bring a little more light into their darkened lives.
I am now a servant of The One Who Knows Time. It's actually quite an adventure, really. I don't know where my next meal's going to come from, where I'm going to sleep tonight, or where I'll end up tomorrow. But no matter how it ends up, I know I'm going to eat, I know I'll have someplace to sleep, and I know everything will work out perfectly because The One has written it all since before the creation of Time! The fact that I am writing this down has been known by The One all along, and this is The One who now rules my life.
I am no longer part of the system. I'm not above the system; I'm below it. The foundation is where the impact is most felt. Everyone thinks I'm dead, and I want to keep it that way for as long as possible.
As soon as he finished, he saw the sun teasing the horizon again. From somewhere, Shadow heard a rooster crow, and he knew he had gotten everything right.