Affliction and Anguish

Chapter 7: A Demon's Devotion

There was a little problem with the last chapter. I didn't make it clear enough that The Commander in the story now, is a new Commander, not the one in the Shadow The Hedgehog game. I've replaced the document with an update that makes is clearer. Just to let you know.

Shadow cried out at the top of his voice, he'd never felt anything like it. The Machine was sucking the energy out of him very slowly but it was a painful thing to happen to anyone. Chaos energy was Shadow's life force, using it up slowly as he did every day of his life, was normal and not at all painful. Purpose extraction, however, was agonising.

"What's going on with you! You're such a baby, no one has ever screamed like this before." The Commander complained as he covered his ears, Shadow wouldn't stop shouting on in pain.

"He won't be able to explain to you. He's in too much pain." said one of the soldiers. The Commander glared at him then slapped Shadow on the cheek. There was no reaction from the hedgehog, just more anguished cries.

"I think we should turn the power down a little bit." The Commander said. "To stop his annoying screams…" he added and turned one of the dials. The chaos energy was being extracted at the same speed but at a slower rate, less was extracted each second, than before.

Shadow's cries died down, instead he just had a wide eyed look, his teeth were clenched and his hands were tensed in pain, his breaths were ragged and shallow. He blinked hard every so often but the majority of the time his eyes were wide open, true pain in his expression. "He won't be screaming now-"

"MEPHILES!" Shadow screamed out at the top of his voice, interrupting The Commander.

"Who?" The Commander said, he had never heard of anyone called Mephiles before. Shadow called the name again, just as loud. "Are you calling for help from someone?" The Commander asked threateningly. Shadow ignored what The Commander said and called again, this time slightly louder. "Right, that's it!" The Commander snapped and went to cover Shadow's mouth.

Just as he was about to do so, the door to the room swung open. The Commander turned to the door to who had stormed in and why they were in such a hurry. It was another GUN soldier. "Commander! Our other headquarters in the south. It's been attacked… one of the skyscrapers have completely collapsed, the other two are going down along with them!" he yelled in shock and urgency.

"WHAT! Is this something to do with you!" The Commander said to Shadow, turning to him furiously. Shadow gave a weak smile which is all he could do through his pain, he then shouted again.

"MEPHILES!" Shadow yelled and began to cough and groan, he was feeling light headed.

Then there was a loud crash and a rumble, The Commander and others in the room looked anxious, they were all now looking to the door. There were more crashes, booms and rumbles, each time getting louder and closer. Shadow was paying no attention to it since he was in so much pain and oblivious to his surroundings.

There was then an explosion right outside of the door, they could see bursts of purple then a furious figure blasted through the door. It was Mephiles who began to boil inside when he saw the state that Shadow was in.

"What is this?" Mephiles asked in fury, his voice loud a bold. "We're extracting chaos energy from your little friend here… and you're next." The Commander said sinisterly and confidently. Mephiles sent a chaos spear at the machine and it broke in half with once quick slice.

Shadow let out a huge gasp as though he was coming up from water, he was still stuck to the table though. Shadow's head looked up to see Mephiles then collapsed back into the table in pure exhaustion with a thump, his eyes became dim.

Mephiles tried to get to Shadow but his way was blocked by the GUN soldiers and The Commander. "Destroy him!" The Commander ordered, once he saw that Mephiles was a threat.

Mephiles was in his crystalline form so it didn't harm him a lot, then he sent out a shockwave that sent the bullets flying back in the opposite direction. All of the soldiers were hit. But not The Commander he was standing behind a soldier. "You coward!" Mephiles said angrily, pointing to The Commander.

He then saw Shadow, squirming and choking in pain, a bullet as hit his side because of the ricochet of bullets. In pure rage, Mephiles sent a chaos spear through The Commander's heart and ended it quickly. He then ran to Shadow and broke the metal restraints on the table and broke Shadow free. He then picked the tormented hedgehog up, holding Shadow's limp body in his arms.

The anguished hedgehog looked up at Mephiles, utter pain in his eyes, tears falling from them. "Mephiles…" Shadow choked. "I'm sorry I failed you… please don't punished me." he rasped.

"No, I won't punish you. You tried hard, you did well." Mephiles lied about his success. "Come on, let's go." Mephiles said. He set off a large chaos blast and escaped immediately with chaos control.

The two of them were outside of the city, Mephiles saw the building they had just been in, fall like a stack of cans, taking nearby sky scrapers down with it. "You did it Shadow." Mephiles sighed sadly and teleported back to Space Colony ARK.

Mephiles laid Shadow's limp body on the cold floor. Shadow looked up at Mephiles, no emotion on his face, he was just baring the pain. "They nearly drained you of your life force Shadow, you could have died." Mephiles said with concern.

"No, I wouldn't have… I'm immortal." Shadow said softly and weakly.

"But… you never know, you've never been drained of that much energy before… you saying that you'll just go into a coma, it's just a hypothesis, you don't know if it's true." Mephiles snapped.

"What do you care? Really… you hate me. You would have enjoyed to see me die." Shadow said hatefully.

"No Shadow, you're wrong, all wrong." Mephiles said angrily.

"Oh, you would have been angry because you will have lost your best and only solider." Shadow spat.

"That's not it!" Mephiles argued.

"All of those weeks of work will have been gone down the drain, it all would have come to nothing?" Shadow guessed, again, hatred and anger in his voice.

"You don't get it!" Mephiles snapped, shouting at Shadow. "I've started to feel compassion for you Shadow. No longer do I envy you, or hate you… I pity you. You've suffered all of your life and just when you get the chance to take revenge, you only end up suffering more." Mephiles said sadly.

Shadow was taken aback by this. "A demon with empathy? Impossible." Shadow said breathlessly.

"No, not impossible. I've watched you grow and change as trained you. It was as if I was raising you from childhood to adulthood." Mephiles explained seriously.

Shadow was silent, he didn't know what to say to this, after how Mephiles had treated him, why would he become concerned about him all of a sudden? "Lies." Shadow said.

"What!"

"You're lying!" Shadow growled.

"If I were lying I would have left you in that building to die… no, you would have just suffered and unbearable amount a pain again as you were crushed under the weight of the whole building." Mephiles yelled.

"You just brought me back here to torment me. Why else would you have tortured me before!" Shadow argued back.

"That was then… I've changed now. I've grown to feel compassion, I didn't always feel it." Mephiles explained irritably.

"This is wrong. I should never have made a deal with a demon, now you're emotionally attached. I'm never going to get away from you." Shadow complained.

"And why would you want to get away from me after everything I've done! I saved you!" Mephiles said. "I don't care what you say! It's not because you're valuable to me, it's not because all of my work will have been wasted, it's because I feel for you, in the same way you would feel for a companion." Mephiles said.

"Just leave it Mephiles… I'm in so much pain right now… I'd rather not talk." Shadow said, his body was now spread out, flat on the floor, he was breathing slowly and quietly.

"I'm sorry, Shadow." Mephiles said and left the room, leaving Shadow to recover from his new injuries.

The confused and angered hedgehog began to think to himself. Was Mephiles really telling the truth, he could have been since he was so gentle to Shadow and didn't punish him for failing. Deep down Shadow had a strong feeling that it was true but was very reluctant to believe it or to trust Mephiles. The cruel demon could always change his mind later and begin to torment him again. What was worse was that Mephiles had claimed to like him now and denying might have made Mephiles hate him again. Shadow could have missed a perfect opportunity.

OMG! My last chance to finish this is tomorrow before I go on holiday! I completely miscalculated the time I have left! I need to finish this soon or there won't be an update for a whole week!

Lucy Labrador