Hi there! Whew, for the first time managed the Halloween one-shot I've been meaning to write forever. :P Warnings include over-the-top dramatics, Amy having freaky powers and a background story that makes about as much sense as your average horror flic. If you're still not deterred however, please read on and have fun! :D
So Deep the Shadows, So Dark the Night
by Taranea
Amy Rose gripped the handle of her shoulder bag tighter as she walked on the damp pavement. Thin trails of midnight fog brushed over her bare forearms like fingers of the dead and she shivered. She should have known better than being out alone so late after nightfall. The streets were not safe at this time of darkness, especially not on Halloween…and had never been safe since last year.
Her boot connected with a thrown-away piece of garbage. This part of town was dirty and neglected, the shadows seeming ever deeper for her knowledge that nobody lived here and half the streetlights were dead. Amy tried to keep her breathing under control, didn't want it sounding so loud that anybody might hear. Her heart was already beating too quickly.
Where had she put her cell phone again…?
Pale moonlight briefly fell through the cloud cover to mingle in Amy's headfur akin a lover's last caress as the girl now was staring down into her bag, biting her lip while her gloved hand was rooting through the purse to find the phone as if something was telling her to better find it fast.
A clatter from the dark alley next to her let Amy give a shriek and whirl around. Jade eyes were wide and fearful, but her trademark hammer had already appeared in her strong fingers' grasp.
Who's there?! Amy would have liked to shout, but didn't. It was cliché.
And if it was him, it would also be totally pointless.
He had been hiding in the shadows, haunting her dreams and stalking her nightmares and if it was him he wouldn't bother to answer. There was no point in acting tough, either. He could hear every frightened beat of her heart.
Fawn-coloured knuckles threatened to tear through her glove as her hand nearly crushed the handle of her hammer. The pink-furred girl stared down the alley, chest heaving as jade eyes narrowed, trying to discern anything in the darkness.
If it was him, running would have been futile anyway.
Almost as futile as when he had still been alive.
Eyes gleamed in the blackness.
...gleamed approximately a foot from the floor.
"Wha…?" Amy asked, before, soundlessly, a feral cat stepped out of the shadow, its black tail flicking and tilting its head as it regarded the obviously terrified Mobian female. It meowed questioningly.
Amy let her hammer touch the ground, a breath of relief escaping her lips.
"A…a cat. Thank Chaos. Heh, kitty, you almost scared me to dea-"
"Oh, good. I would hate it if I had affrighted you, m'lady."
Amy felt her blood run cold. The voice had sounded only an inch from her ear and even without the cat suddenly dashing away madly, she would have known that evil had finally found her. She whirled around with her hammer, but of course, hit nothing. As soon as she could see clearly again, she could discern him leaning against a wall now, fur not even ruffled. The street lights were starting to flicker. Amy knew that soon, they would shorten out. When they did, they would eclipse her life along with them.
She had to see it didn't come to that.
Her tongue darted over her lips, moistening them so she would be able to speak more fluidly. Maybe help would arrive, but in this run-down, deserted part of the city even that was doubtful.
The other hedgehog's eyes gleamed with an amusement that told her he knew that.
Amy could feel the bile rising in her throat. She wouldn't be his next easy victim.
"Shadow," she growled. "This will be your last night alive."
He chuckled. "My last night alive was a long time ago, Amy Rose."
He dislodged himself from the wall and strolled over toward her again, his movements of an easy, non-chalant elegance, looking less like a Mobian than ever and more like the pure essence of a hunter. His voice sounded like a frozen blade cutting through velvet and his eyes glistened akin freshly spilt blood… The black hedgehog smiled at her and his long incisors gleamed in the light of one dying streetlamp.
"But it might very well be yours."
She shifted her feet apart for a more battle-ready stance.
Outwardly, what had once been Shadow the Hedgehog looked just the same – a sleek coat, glowing crimson eyes and those trademark gloves and shoes of his. But this…creature that he had become did not only have a paler muzzle and a body as cold as the stone beneath their feet, but also eyes that were soulless, a thirst for blood and a craving for the kill.
Shadow the Hedgehog, vampire.
In the beginning, they had tried to help him when he had started to turn into this eldritch creature. It had been their first of many mistakes.
Shadow slowly stepped closer to her, one of his hands extended, beckoning.
"Care to join me in the danse macabre, Amy Rose?" he smiled at her and bowed.
Amy swallowed. Shadow was an old-fashioned vampire. It meant that he would behave like a perfect gentleman while he talked to you, he would burn in the sun if he ever saw the light of day again, and if he chose to hunt you, you would die.
Back then, it had been late last October, when the mornings had been chilly and the nights colder by far. There had been a series of unexplained murders, and of course, the city's hero Sonic the Hedgehog had to help out. Even when the murders got even stranger and the only trail seemed to lead into a graveyard far from the city…
The young hedgehog took a step backwards but that was only so she could haul out with her hammer some more.
"Try to touch me and you will regret it. I'm not nearly as defenceless as you think anymore."
"We have been watching a bit too much Buffy again, have we?" the dark-furred Sapient asked mockingly, stepping forward like Death to a dance. "In that case, let me spoil the ending of tonight's episode," he said, baring his teeth in what only a fool would have called a smile.
"The heroine dies."
And he leapt toward her.
In the graveyard, they had found him a year ago, still covered in blood from his last kill. He had been barely coherent – a genetic programme written into his DNA by Professor Gerald, he had stammered, a programme that had gone deadly wrong and was changing him…because Gerald had gone even madder than they had thought.
"Oh no, you don't!" Amy screamed the last word, swinging her hammer with a speed that would have made her beloved blue hero proud if he had seen it – but Amy blocked that thought out as it was too painful. She only hoped that Shadow was still Mobian enough to feel the pain she was causing him. The hammer connected with his side in midflight, the impact solid as the black-furred predator was struck and his body knocked brutally against the stone wall of the narrow alley.
"Hah-!" Amy gasped as her attack had actually succeeded; almost disbelieving her own eyes as she could see the slender form hit the bricks and tumble down toward the concrete. He spilled into a sitting position against the wall, legs splayed, arm at an odd angle and face hanging down. But then he raised his head and Amy could see in his smile right then and there that she hadn't hurt him at all.
Shadow had become even stronger, even faster, even more impervious to poisons and weapons than before. But the price his dead creator had made him pay was his mind. Instead, it was as if a being had grown inside the black-furred antihero that knew nothing of mercy or friendship, cared little for love or family bonds, but only consisted of power and bloodlust. And so Mobius' first vampire had gone on the hunt…
"That was a nice try, little wannabe slayer…" Shadow said, raising himself smoothly again, and grabbing his right shoulder to yank it back into position with a horrid crack, but without twitching once. "Yet not nearly enough to survive this night." His eyes shone like a promise.
Amy bit back the whimper her treacherous throat wanted to utter, briefly shifting her weight again in preparation for the next attack. She could do this. She had to do this. For everyone.
But when he struck next, she hadn't even been able to see it coming.
Suddenly, pain blossomed across her chest like a poisonous flower, and her weapon was wrested from her grasp as Shadow seemed to have come from nowhere; appearing from behind her almost as if he had Chaos Controlled like he had when still alive. His claws had left three deep gashes across her chest while his other had viciously twisted her arm in an unbreakable grip. Amy could feel tears starting to spring into her eyes, her breath coming in painful gasps from her open mouth, but even though Shadow had his face next to hers and his chest pressed up against her back, she could neither hear nor feel him breathe. He was as cold as the night air...Amy shivered.
"Feeling the cold, Amy?" Shadow asked, his voice low and right next to her ear, whispering the words like a feline predator might purr when he is playing with his wounded prey.
"Halloween marks the beginning of the darker half of the year. It means winter is coming…" his clawed fingers caressed her fresh cuts. "…and when winter is coming, roses must die."
Amy nearly cringed at the pain, crimson liquid leaking cruelly into her cotton red dress. She twisted her head to look into her tormentor's face, her terrified gaze connecting with his garnet stare, filled with twisted amusement, the ecstasy of a recent kill, and the thrill of the hunt.
The pink hedgehog's eyes briefly darted to the side again, her suspicions confirmed. In the deeper shadows of the alley already lay a corpse, a young human boy with wild brown hair, a red-white shirt and knee-length blue pants. Shadow had already fed this night. No wonder he was taking his time with her.
"I don't care whether you kill me," she lied, forcing her voice to remain steady while her free hand dug into her dress pocket, searching. "You already killed my love."
"If only your racing heart wouldn't tell me different," Shadow replied sanguinely, his fingers moving away from her burning wounds and briefly resting just above the spot where she could feel it hammering against her chest.
"Why don't you listen to my cards instead, then?" She managed, hyper-aware that his fingers could have just dug into her rib-cage and ripped her heart out, had he chosen to. But he had not, and that would be his demise.
"What-?" Shadow started, briefly confused by her seemingly random statement, and that was all she needed. Her left hand tore out of her pocket, holding the three Tarot cards she had searched for and found, twisting herself out of his grasp as she thrust them into his face.
"Your past, present and future," she intoned, fanning them open so each picture was clearly recognizable. Shadow looked at her with slight disbelief, perhaps thinking the esoterically-inclined girl had lost her mind at last.
"This is what has been," Amy stated, separating the first card from the others, ignoring the burning pain across her chest. The picture on the card showed Death on his horse, and unlike the usual metaphoric interpretation, it was clear that this time it was meant literally. "You died this night last year."
He returned her gaze steadily, perhaps too intrigued to see what she was up to. It would be his last mistake, she thought as she held up the second card.
"Your present," she said, showing him a drawing of the moon on it, a world of night filled with dangerous animals depicted. "You hunt and kill since under the cover of darkness."
He crossed his arms now, watching her with detached amusement. She knew he could still kill her in seconds. She wouldn't give him the chance.
"And then you murdered my friends. So this is your future," she rasped, displaying the third and final card in her hands. "Judgement."
His expression changed into a frown as he tried to discern the picture this time. It didn't look like the other Tarot cards. It was a lot more life-like. And it didn't show anything apart from a fox made of fire….
"I summon you! End his existence, Tails!" she shouted, and at the same time, the card spilled forth a storm of flames, a huge, nine-tailed fox figure emerging. It seemed more like a feral demon than a sapient Mobian, rearing gracefully on four burning legs, its fur so white it was almost blinding. Shadow's eyes grew wide in shock.
"You killed him, too," Amy reminded him. "He was only nine years old. He went after you because you had killed Sonic, of course," the pink hedgehog recounted, her voice growing bitter and harsh, "And I couldn't stop him. I could only find the body after you were done with him." Tears threatened to spill over again, but this time she wasn't crying from fear, but from rage. "This card contains my feelings for all the friends you took from me." Her lip twisted. "And it will tear you apart."
Shadow took a step backward, for the first time since their encounter on the defensive. The fox spirit snarled, red, ghostly flames flickering underneath its paws, licking at its flanks and dancing in between its swishing tails as it stood protectively before its mistress. Black markings almost like roman numerals seemed to flit across its snow-white fur as if to remind the viewer that it did not belong into this world. Only its eyes perhaps, eyes as blue as the daylight sky that had once gazed up at a blue-furred hero with as much love as a kid brother was only able to give. Eyes that Shadow had seen when they had closed for the last time.
"Tarot cards have a direct connection to people's souls," Amy's voice reminded the black hedgehog. "On nights like these, when the barrier between the worlds is thin, they can also act as more than a connection – they can be a gate for them."
The fox spirit lunged.
"Am-!" Shadow called out, but was already rushed by the demon, the incarnation of Tails' soul crashing into his murderer and knocking him flat onto his back. Immediately, all countenance was gone from the dark-furred vampire as his instincts erased his last shreds of intelligence when pure survival was what mattered. He bared his razor-sharp teeth with a savage hiss and snapped at the fox' throat atop him, the white spirit throwing his head backwards to avoid the fangs. The vampire screamed where the burning paws of the fox scorched his fur with holy fire; black claws burst through cream gloves slashing upwards to cut into the white spirit's flank in retaliation. Amy watched as the two supernatural creatures rolled and snarled on the floor, neither of them able to bleed nor to die but both feeling the pain the other inflicted on him. Her right hand grabbed her hammer again. Her left hand took the stake from her shoulder bag. She could end this.
Shadow let loose a gargling, ragged scream as he was once again hurled against the wall like a piece of garbage, but this time he didn't get up again like he had before. The fox spirit was badly hurt, too, but that hadn't stopped it from biting the vampire into the shoulder and flinging the hedgehog out from under him like a disfigured ragdoll. The teeth of the summoned nine-tail had left deep, ugly incisions across Shadow's torso, and the dark-furred creature seemed to be in actual pain now, his movements graceless as he was trying and failing to get up again. Amy knelt by his side quickly like a nurse would, but she was a distorted version of a helping samaritan by now, her clothes and fur blood-soiled, eyes reflecting pain and vengeance in the otherworldly fire of the demon fox, and her hands holding instruments of destruction instead of salvation. She placed the tip of the stake over the black hedgehog's dead heart.
"Your killing spree ends tonight, like I promised," she rasped, meeting his gaze unblinking. "You deserve to be erased from this world forever and I will make sure you are." She raised her hammer, the black hedgehog still unresisting. "Goodbye forever, Shadow…this is for the murder of Sonic the Hedgehog!"
And then, he started to laugh.
"What?" Amy snapped, unnerved more than she would have liked to admit by the strange sound of this monster laughing when his demise was upon him. Her fox, too, blinked in consternation as it was only mirroring her feelings.
"Amy Rose, oblivious to the very end…" Shadow drawled, his smooth voice hoarse now, larynx damaged by the spirit's teeth.
"What do you mean?" Amy demanded. She knew she should just kill him, but still hesitated despite herself. Was this about…?
"You never found his body, did you?" he asked.
"No, but-" Amy stammered but was interrupted when once again the edges of his mouth drew back in a demonic smile that had held not a smidgen of mirth.
"That's because I did not kill Sonic the Hedgehog..."
"…it's because he turned me."
And suddenly, her weapons were wrested away from her and she was once again in his familiar arms as he had materialized behind her. They were as peach-furred and strong as she remembered them…but also as cold as marble and the chest her back was pressed against had no heart beating inside.
"No," Amy whispered. For the first time in almost a year, she looked into her true love's eyes again and they were as soulless as the other vampire's. "Sonic…" she finally whimpered.
She still had her demon fox with her. Shadow was already out of combat. She only had to muster up the strength and give the command and it would attack, and drive off or even defeat what had once been Mobius' greatest hero. She drew a breath to utter an order…
…and found herself absolutely unable to follow the plan through. A look at Tails' soul confirmed this. The fox was whining, shaking his head in distress, torn between the love for his older brother and his despair at what he had become. They were absolutely powerless.
"Hello, Amy," Sonic said and it sounded like he had never been away. She could feel herself going limp as he smiled at her….
"Welcome to the rest of your death."
And he sank his fangs deep into her throat.
"Happy Halloween, Amy Rose…"
Fin
Hi there! No despite how I'm gonna be dressed today, I am neither dead, nor undead, but very much alive - just reeeeally stressed out and I apologize for the complete lack of chapters for anything so far. However, the next installment of 'Life could have been so different' is nearly finished and should be up within the next week. Other than that, hope you enjoyed the one-shot, and have a great Halloween - I carved a Raving Rabbid pumpkin and am off celebrating tonight in the ruins of castle Frankenstein. ;) If you liked, please read an review?^^