Chapter 3! Hope you will enjoy it, even if it is short...I wonder if the characters are not OOC. Anyway have a good read :D
In the depth of a metal fortress, two robots were slowly working their way up to three heroes that dared to steal from their master. They had only one goal in their robotic mind and that was to eradicate any threat that could arise, should the data go missing. Their red eyes illuminating the darkness while searching for their prey and the occasional flashing of light bulbs on broken walls displayed their bodies of shiny metal. The swarm was keeping the prey inside, weakening it for them, for the moment they reached their destination. Their metal boots clanked on the hard floor, making the sound echo around them; they were nearing their position… and their weapons needed to feel organic tissue on them…
"Shadow, we can't keep this up forever!" Blaze shouted as she melted three adversaries that had come after her. She scanned the battlefield for another target. Just as she found one, a chaos spear pierced it, causing it to explode.
"I know, but we need to give Rouge time to set the charges up. We can't let those robots roam free in here," the black hedgehog yelled back as he jumped and launched three more chaos spears, killing enemies before him as easy as one would kill a fly. As he landed near the fire princess, he noticed that the robots were circling around them… they were keeping them busy instead of swarming them with full force, but why?
"I really hope she doesn't just leave us in here," Blaze growled while waiting for their opponents to make their move. She didin't trust Rouge, not after their last talk.
"She may be selfish, but she isn't someone who would leave their fellow companions behind." Shadow replied with confidence and launched himself at the enemies, provoking them to action. Normally he would use chaos blast to obliterate them all and escape, but with Blaze in here, she could be caught in its range.
I really hope you are right, thought the fire cat as she began her fire dance around her enemies, gracefully attacking and eradicating them one by one. If this keeps up they will get tired soon.
As the fight still continued for minutes, that seemed to be hours, the black hedgehog and lilac feline were back to back, fending off the incoming and never ending enemies, while metal parts were scattered everywhere around the room that got it's fresh marks from this battle.
"You aren't half bad when it comes to fighting," said Blaze with a small smile on her lips. while stabilizing her breathing. "remind me not to get on your bad side."
"I can say the same thing about you," Shadow smirked, not removing his sight from menacing robots, looking for something that would give them an edge. "your fire control powers are impresive."
"Maybe so, but yours are powerfull as well. After we return, why don't we spar to determine whose are strongest?" proposed the fire cat, which got her another one of Shadow's rare smirks. He was wondering about that himself, but never got a chance to ask the fire feline about it thinking she would probably decline. He still didn't knew much about her.
"Gladly—watch out!" He cried as he got them both down, saving both of their heads from an incoming laser.
Where the hell is that bat? Shadow growled to himself and just as if on cue, his communicator came to life with a quiet beeping sound. The transmission wasn't of highest quality but he understood what his G.U.N. partner said to him.
"Shadow, the charges are in place, how are both of you doing?" The carefree voice of none other than Rouge the Bat crackled through the speaker. Getting Blaze and himself up, he looked at the surrounding enemies, which had stopped attacking for some reason. Were they being simply polite? No...they were preparing for something.
"We could use some help or…wait—what is this?" As he looked ahead, he saw that the circle of robots parted and through the opening came two robots, different than the horde that they faced. The two looked identical, with height maybe a head above Shadow, stylized in the image of two knights of shiny metal. The robots, one with sword, the other with axe, came inside the circle and spoke in unison.
"Target acquired. Priority: Eliminate enemy threat. Secondary objective: Disarm bomb in section C-5."
"Rouge…it looks like we will be here a little longer. Get out of here and give the commander the data. Send me the timer for the bomb. Blaze and I will catch up later."
"Wait Sha…" Rouge began to say, but Shadow cut the communication short. He turned to Blaze, "Can you still fight princess?" She sent him a small smile.
"Don't underestimate me". With their small exchange concluded, the two of them rushed at enemy robots.
Shadow, who took upon himself the robot knight with dual-handed sword, began his attack with a chaos spear. He wanted to examine its abilities, movement speed and other things that might let him discover its weakness, as any experienced warrior would. As the spear flew through the air, the robot dodged to the side and rushed straight at the Ultimate life-form while swinging its sword horizontally. Seeing that, Shadow performed a slide to get under the machine and attacked with an uppercut, which sent the robot flying into a wall.
"Not so hard are you?" He smirked, only to see the robot get up without a hint of a scratch.
This will be one long fight, he deducted, looking over to see how the princess fared.
Blaze didn't have much trouble with her adversary—it was slow enough for her to dodge every attack. The problem was with its hard armor, which made her offense useless. Not only was it resistant to her fire powers, but even her kicks didn't seem to have much effect on it. Just as she was thinking how to attack next, the robot attacked from on high with its axe making a big dent in the floor where she had been standing a mere moment ago. While mid-air, she performed a devastating kick to the robot's head… but it didn't phase it at all. As she landed near Shadow, her golden eyes met his ruby ones
"We need to slow them down. I will get them together. Can you melt the floor under them?" Shadow asked. He had begun forming a plan to counter them.
"I can do it, but what good would it be? They seem unfazed by our attacks," the fire princess grimaced with furrowed brow.
"Just trust me on this one," said the black hedgehog and began his tactic.
The ultimate life-form jumped high in air and landed between the two robots. It was a risky move, since he wasn't sure he would be able to dodge both of their oncoming attacks. Just as predicted, both robots calculated that their chances of destroying the hedgehog together would quicken their fight and acted quickly, each swinging their weapons. Just as the blade and axe were about to eliminate their prey, Shadow warped out of the way, reappearing near Blaze.
"Now!" He shouted and the fire cat began quickly melting the ground under both of the robots' feet. As expected, the old metal floor quickly gave and both of their enemies went down, one floor below.
"Now what?" asked the feline, looking at Shadow, who quickly wrapped his arms around her and uttered the words "Chaos Control", warping them both out of the old base, which exploded some seconds later taking all of their enemies with it.
They reappeared in the forest below with the explosion still lingering in their ears. and smell of burned instalation all around. Blaze, embarrassed about the situation, quickly pushed the hedgehog away… she wasn't used to being this close to anyone, a male especially.
"You could have told me your plan!" She quickly said with an annoyed look on her face, trying hard to replace the blush that was on her face with anger.
"Sorry, I couldn't let those robots know and they seemed intelligent enough," said Shadow, for whom this action didn't have any meaning. He was only doing his job after all… or he was simply good at hiding his own feelings?
"We should get back to the headquarters. I'm sure Rouge will be there with the data," he muttered and slowly began running. Somehow, the last words from the black hedgehog made Blaze upset. Shoving her emotions aside, like she always did, she began chasing after him, wondering how little she actually knew about Shadow the Hedgehog.
When they entered the headquarters, the others were already waiting. Sonic the Hedgehog, Knuckles the Echidna, Amy Rose, Tails, Rouge the Bat and Commander Tower were all present in a small room empty of furnitures, save for some chairs and table with some blueprints on it and a big monitor on wall. Blaze noticed how the two male hedgehogs eyed each other suspiciously, but didn't say a word, nor did they greet one another...another curious thing for her.
"Good. Now that all of us are here, let me tell you what we know," the Commander began while showing them data on big monitor that was in the room. The diagrams were complex...like the whole thing was designed by a madman, which was probably true. "The signal that we traced shows, that Dr. Robotnik is hiding in Downunda, in one of his bases. We will now form a plan to…"
"Wait, a plan? If we know where he is why not attack already?" Blaze asked, instantly ticked off that the commander wanted to waste even more of her time; she had had enough waiting. This action met with approval from Sonic and Knuckles, who also were itching for some good old fashioned action.
"If you let me finish, Miss Blaze," the commander calmly began once more, but Blaze didn't listen and simply left the room. She needed some time alone to calm herself down.
"She is just stressed…she'll come around… Please continue Sir," Rouge offered. reassuring the military man, that he could continue speaking. Amy, having a bad feeling and not wanting to let Blaze do anything stupid, went after her, but nobody paid any notice… or so she thought, unaware that certain ruby colored eyes were observing the situation with interest.
Blaze was looking through the same window as before, admiring how peaceful this world was. She was deep in her own thoughts when she heard soft footsteps approach her. Without turning around she began speaking since she already knew who was behind her.
"I know what you want to say, Amy, but I've had enough waiting. Even as the commander speaks, out there one of my friends may be badly hurt because of the cataclysms…and that's my fault for not being fast enough." She spoke quietly with clear bitterness in her voice , but stopped after a while. She knew Amy would probably tell her " it's going to be okay", "Sonic is here", etc.
"I know it's hard on you…"
Here she goes, Blaze sighed tired, but at the same time glad that she had such good...friend? She supposed she could call Amy by that title.
"…but I'm sure you understand that we can't simply rush there," said the girl in the red dress, and the fire cat could only sigh again. When Amy was speaking to her like that, she just couldn't be angry at her. As she was about to respond, another presence made itself known.
"Even though you have a fair point Amy, I don't think our princess here will listen to it." The soft, yet strong voice that flew through the room belonged to none other than Shadow the Hedgehog, who slowly made his way towards them, with an emotionless look on his face. As the sound of his footsteps subdued, Amy looked at him puzzled.
"I thought you were making a plan," said the pink hedgehog, pouting at Shadow's sudden appearance. This isn't good, she thought, in this state, those two will probably argue. Before she could do something about the situation, however, Shadow began speaking again.
"That's why I'm here. We need everyone to form a plan, and the princess being out here isn't exactly helping her own cause."
Amy didn't know what exactly made Blaze explode…if it was the thing Shadow said, or his emotionless voice that he always used. Was it simply the anger that Blaze had put aside since she came to their dimension? That didn't matter, because Blaze finally snapped and what came next wasn't going to end well.
"How dare you tell me where I am needed? If it was about me, I would just go and get my emeralds back by myself!" She growled loudly, nearly yelling at the black hero, who remained unfazed, with bored expression on his face, like he was expecting that outburst.
"So you would rush to your death…that would be helpful to your people," he replied, not losing his composure. Amy thought she should do something before things got even more out of control, but again she was late.
"And what would you know of responsibility? You have your world safe, you don't even know anything about mine and you DON'T KNOW HOW IT IS TO LOSE SOMETHING IMPORTANT!" Blaze yelled at the top of her lungs into his face, while looking accusingly at Shadow. She stared deep into his ruby eyes, with her own golden ones full of anger. If her pyrokinetic powers would let her burn people with her sight, then Shadow would probably turn into ash...but she didn't had that kind of power.
As Amy eyes grew wider and wider with each word that left Blaze's mouth all she could do was watch. The royal feline didn't know of Shadow's past, and didn't know that those words were one of the worst possible things for her to say to him. With fast beating heart, Amy knew she needed to act now if she didn't want Shadow to kill the fire princess where she stood, and she knew that if he decided on to something, then he would certainly do it.
"Shadow…" She began calmly, with eyes full of fear for her friend, but her words caught in her throat when a seething look of pure hatred seeped from the black hedgehog's eyes.
In her life, Blaze rarely got angry…but when she did, in her anger she often said things that people would hate her for. Of course she had usually been right when stating that someone didn't know how it is to shoulder a hard duty or to lose something important to them…not many had experienced the things she had, and that was why she usually kept to herself with belief that others wouldn't be able to understand her. However, never in her life had she experienced anyone showing this much hate towards her after things that she said in anger… this time everything was different. When she saw Shadow angry when facing the enemies or when she saw him fight, not willing to forfeit, it wasn't the kind of hatred that would make her scared…it was just anger. Now, the hatred in his eyes sent chills down her spine and worst of all…it was meant for her. The pure feeling of fear that she got from looking at his eyes had frozen the flames of anger that were raging in her mere seconds ago, as she tried to get her own voice out.
"S-shadow…" she stuttered, but the black hedgehog simply looked at her for some time, as if thinking of something, before turning around and storming out of the room with angry steps, either afraid of what he would do if he stayed, or what he would say back.
Standing still, frozen and unable to move, looking on as he exited the hallway, Blaze the Cat heard a quiet voice behind her…a whisper. It belonged to her friend Amy Rose.
"You shouldn't have said that…" she stated and began slowly walking after Shadow, lost in her own thoughts, "we should go. The others are waiting for us." As she began walking towards the door Blaze stopped her.
"Wait, Amy… I know I said something I shouldn't have…" the fire princess started, but the pink heroine only shook her head, silencing her words with this gesture.
"I shouldn't be the one you should be speaking about this. I will only tell you that today you crossed the line with Shadow… and that you should really apologize to him." Amy stated quietly, not wanting to go into details of the black hedgehog's very personal past since he wouldn't want for someone to speak about it, behind his back, but Blaze didn't stop there, she wanted...needed to know more.
"Apologize…? I don't even know what to apologize for," she pressed, waiting for one last response from the female hedgehog, who took deep breath.
"I will only say that if anybody really knows what it is like to lose what is important to you, then it's Shadow… he has already lost his everything. I can't say more about this, I'm sorry." With those words, Amy left the area, leaving Blaze to her own thoughts... What have I done? The feline soon went after her into the room where her friends were gathered. Upon entering, she stole a quick glance at Shadow, but he seemed unfazed, like nothing had happened earlier… but one look into his eyes told her that he was still mad, and that she would have to apologize somehow…
To be continued... (yay 1/4 story finished!)