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Sonic the Hedgehog: Jungle of Shadow
Chapter 2: Depths of Darkness
The jungle wasn't what Sonic expected.
Then again, he wasn't sure what to expect. He'd never been in it before, none of his friends had been in it and while he'd seen a few pictures of jungles and rainforests in picture books and more recently, comics, he was well aware that art rarely imitated reality. Heck, if that was the case, the South Island's beach would have three metre tall waves around the clock with scantily clad female mobians left, right and centre...or something. Chuck hadn't wanted him to look at that magazine for some reason.
But he didn't want me to come into the jungle either...so what does he know?
Only how to be spineless and not stand up for himself when it came to moving back to Mobotropolis. SO no...as far as the young hedgehog was concerned, his uncle knew nothing.
Right now, standing within what had been forbidden, Sonic supposed he already knew more than Chuck. Unlike the images he'd seen, this jungle was dark and silent, with no plants springing up towards a sun with a rainbow in the background, nor were there birds and lizards on every tree and fern. The first difference, he supposed he could understand, given how thick the canopy was. Faint rays of sunlight filtered through-a stark contrast to the seemingly perpetual sunshine of the Green Hills. The trees here...so close together, whilst Sonic was used to them being spaced further apart at intervals almost as regular as those 360 degree loops. Plants were clearly dominant here. And the mobians, let alone dumb animals on the same level of intelligence as Muttski, were non-existent.
Maybe the mobian-eating plants got them...
Or not. Because somehow, even the plants seemed subdued. And as he drew in the cool, murky air of this world, Sonic could understand why. The air here, without wind or the smell of salt that he was used to...it was...oppressive, somehow. As if it was suffocating the local flora like a weed, after proving poisonous to the fauna. And whilst Sonic wasn't sure whether flora meant plants and fauna meant animals, or whether it was the other way round, the point remained. Up until now, no-one that he knew of had been in this jungle. Up until now, he'd obeyed his uncle's wishes that he stay clear of it. And right now, Sonic was beginning to understand both aspects as to why this place seemed so deserted.
Kintobor might know...the hedgehog thought glumly, his spirits becoming as grim as this manifestation of a florist's worst nightmare. He could take out some gizmo and...
His train of thought became as non-existent as the wind. Kintobor was gone. That was all there was to it.
No there isn't.
Scratch that. His conscience had spoken again. Irritating jerk.
Don't you want to go where no mobian has gone before? To push the boundaries? To show your uncle you needn't bow to his wishes?
Sonic remained silent. Not that there was anyone or anything around, but even then he'd give up eating chilli dogs before he started speaking to himself. And with that silence, and the silence of what felt like another world, his conscience therefore had free reign.
Just a bit further. You won't be able to come back here again. Not for a long time. Maybe never...
That was true. All of it was. He only had the rest of today to savour what South Island had to offer. For the past few years, that had only been its beach and the Green Hills. And if Mobotropolis was fated to be his setting from tomorrow onwards, the least he could do was widen his experience.
Good for you.
Silently, Sonic began moving forward. Not running, not jogging, just walking. As silent as this realm and as deliberate as whoever had built the loops in the Green Hills. And, as he moved deeper and deeper into this dark realm, almost as insane as well.
This is crazy...Sonic thought, hardly able to believe he was trying to reign himself in. I've flown over the cuckoo's nest...
Or not. There were no birds here, not even as he moved further in. No wind. Not even light. Just the dark, the damp and the suffocating air. Not literally suffocating of course...perhaps...smothering was the better term. It was closing in on him, slowing him down. Sonic could feel it, as sure as he could feel the wind in what felt like a realm away. Even the trees seemed to be closing in. Even as he stood still on the path...
What's a path doing in an untamed jungle anyway?
"An excellent question...yet you're only asking it now?"
Oh great, my...
Sonic's thought stopped along with his motion.
His conscience didn't speak. Not out-loud anyway. And his conscience certainly never laughed like a cackling devil, its sound reverberating through the trees as if they were the walls of a cave, providing an echo. Yet as Sonic spun around, desperately trying to find the source of the laughter, he supposed he effectively was in a cave. A cave closing in on him, from above, below and from beside.
"To think it took me this long to draw you in..." the voice continued, coming from both nowhere and everywhere. "You sought the scientist out...yet I had to pose as your very mind to take the next step."
"What...I don't..."
"Know?" the voice sneered. "Of course not. You know nothing. You know nothing of the world, nothing of my world and despite what you may be telling yourself in order to not break down like the child you are, you know nothing of me either. Nothing of the paradox...of an inferior being giving rise to a superior one."
He was right. Sonic didn't know. And right now, as the hedgehog spun around, as he felt faint and ill like he'd come down with the flu, he wasn't sure he wanted to know.
He wasn't sure of anything right now.
"What...are you?" Sonic managed to ask.
"I am what you created. Or was it Kintobor? I'd ask him if that was possible."
Sonic's heart skipped a beat...which was the last thing he needed, considering how difficult it now was to get oxygen into his bloodstream seemingly. The arteries were cowering, the veins were taking a day off and his lungs were protesting at these grotesque working conditions. Right now, Sonic couldn't blame them. Mentioning Kintobor was liable to have that effect.
"The Retro Orbital Chaos Compressor..." the voice sneered. "A quest to rid Mobius of evil via the seven Chaos Emeralds. Hubris at its finest."
"Don't...talk..."
"He tripped...he took that egg you wanted him to chuck instead of doing it yourself...laziness sabotaging brilliance..."
"Shut...up..." the mobian whispered, his head pounding from both the voice and the lack of blood reaching it. "Just...shut..."
"The ROCC went the same way as the doctor's life...you saw the body. A mercy, really. It's more than what many other worlds recieved from that incident...repeated a thousand times, always with similar results...I'd say you were lucky...but you're not...the evil went elsewhere this time."
Evil...Sonic felt surrounded by it. Funny, really, that this...thing should mention the word. After all, Kintobor had been working on sealing Mobius's evil away in the seven Chaos Emeralds and bar the grey emeralds, had almost succeeded. But with the ROCC destroyed...
Oh no...
"Yes," the voice sneered, speaking the gospel of the damned. "I'm the...'evil', as you call it. Abaddon. I am what should have gone into Kintobor, but was instead made manifest in a different way. "I am a monument to his sins, and your shame. I am what the incompetence of you both has brought into the world. And now, with Kintobor dead, only you remain to put my creation to rights."
And then it happened. It happened to Sonic's horror. It happened to Sonic's dread. It happened as the air around him moved away, coalescing into a cloud of fire, with a smell like sulphur. His conscience...this being...the voice had seemed to come from all around him because it was all around him. Or rather, it had been. Right now, it was all in front of him.
"Greetings, little hedgehog," the demon sneered, or whatever he was. "You'll be seeing Kintobor soon...one bad egg...to join another."
And then, right now, in this moment of space, time and dimensions beyond his comprehension, Sonic the Hedgehog did the only thing he could do.
Run like hell...away from Hell...
Three minutes and thirty torn branches later, Sonic was still running. Running from Hell, yet still in its deepest circle.
Or something like that. All he knew of "Hell" was something he'd read in a comic once and it barely sustained his interest. Yet from what he had picked up, Hell was supposed to be a place of fire and brimstone. A place from which you couldn't escape. And right now, pursued by this...Abaddon, he supposed that summed up his situation perfectly.
Spent all my life running...but never from something...
"Keep running hedgehog," the voice whispered-vocal, but more like what the hedgehog had once assumed what was his own mind. "Even at your speed, you can't outrun inevitability."
Gritting his teeth, his heart pounding for reasons other than the flow of blood, Sonic ignored him/it. There was at least one improvement in his situation, in that it was no longer difficult to breathe. Now was hardly the time nor place to think about it, but he supposed the dense air may have been this thing all along, that he could breathe freely now because the creature had coalesed into a single mass.
Chuck could explain it better...or Kintobor...
Vaulting over a fallen log, only to hear the creature smash through it behind him, Sonic briefly cast his mind back to the human scientist. A scientist who'd wanted to seal evil away for good, yet had given rise to this thing. It seemed as farfetched as the idea of sealing evil away in the first place, but how else could Abaddon have known? And if it had come from the Chaos Emeralds...then who was to say what kind of power it had?
Sonic looked back to check...and seeing the burning gas closing in on him, devoid of physical form, he put on the juice to ensure he wouldn't find out.
"Run run run as fast as you can," Abaddon cackled. "You can't escape me, I'm the..."
"Gingerbread man?"
"I have no need for rhymes. Nor jokes."
"Bummer."
Humor was a wonderful thing. But not as wonderful as staying alive. Or, the means to do so, namely getting away from this beast. But as fast as Sonic could go, Abaddon could keep up.
I thought I was the fastest thing alive...but is it even living?
Some perverse part of the hedgehog was enjoying this. Most of him however still wanted to avoid being incinerated. And racking his brains, he realized how to. Throughout all this, Abaddon had matched his speed. But what if he could match his agility? Approaching another fallen log, Sonic decided to find out. This time, he didn't vault over it. This time, he jumped on it and sprung up to the upper canopy.
"Tarzan, eat your heart out."
Jokes aside, the mobian didn't stop. Jumping, swinging, he made his way through the trees. Glimpsing back down below, he saw the creature following. Or more specifically, smashing down every tree, plouging through the rainforest in order to reach his target.
"Pal, I hope you're going to use some of that for lumber."
Abaddon didn't answer. Shame really.
The hedgehog wondered why Abadon didn't float up like gas normally would. Was it that he couldn't? Did his concentrated form keep him grounded? Sonic didn't know. But as he swung and jumped through the trees at a rate that almost gave his running speed a...run, for its money, he knew that it was working. Abaddon's roars and the sound of splintered wood were fading. He'd escaped...or nearly had. Because as he came to rest in a tree, as he felt silence descend over the jungle once more, Sonic could sense that he'd only brought himself time. He'd lost the jailer, but he was still in the jail.
"So, he lured you in too did he?"
And, as he turned to see the last person he expected, the mobian realized that he had a cellmate.
