Chapter 9: Crush them all
When I had been working for Dr. Robotnik, helping to charge up the Eclipse Cannon in order to destroy Mobius, I had jumped from the planet, to the ARK, and back many times. The ARK is in geosynchronous orbit somewhere about twenty-two thousand miles above Mobius. That's quite a jump for Chaos Control, except that the chaos field extends far into space, beyond the moons, in fact. The higher you go, the less gravitational forces interfere with it, so the easier it is to teleport. Going back to Mobius is actually harder than leaving it.
At least, with one emerald, it is. With five, we had no trouble at all.
The ARK was cold, dark and abandoned, just like the last time I had been here. I knew that Robotnik was modifying the Eclipse Cannon for his own nefarious ends, but that had nothing to do with me. The cannon controls and machinery were all in the first circle levels, and I was only interested in third circle, level eight.
I skated down the halls with barely a sound. Nox trotted after me, neck curled in a U to avoid the ceiling, his claws clicking on the floor. There was so much dust on the floor that my skates flash-ignited it from time to time, leaving little smouldering dust bunnies in our wake.
The armory was so dark, when I pushed the door open, that I had Nox ignite his phoenix-shield. At once a bubble of fire whooshed into being around him, pushing back the darkness. The armory had been gutted by GUN, naturally, but it was still depressing to see it so. I paused beside an empty healing capsule on the floor. Maria's. I nearly stooped to pick it up, but stopped. What good would it do to carry about an empty fifty year old capsule? Get a grip, Shadow.
The weapons rack in the back had been nearly torn out of the wall. A few wall panels hung loose behind it, bolts protruding like blunt teeth. I dropped to all fours and peered beneath. At the very back, obscured by dust, was a gleam of gold.
I had to lay flat on the floor, and I could still barely reach the bracelets. But after a few minutes of groping in the dust, I fished them out and sat blowing them off, polishing them against my fur. Nox viewed them with disgust. "Why do you want those things? Last time they hurt you."
"No, those were Gerald's bracelets," I said. "These are mine. Maria took them off me before she died. I used to wear them to restrain my chaos powers." I chuckled. "There were a few times that they got out of hand, so the scientists in the chaos lab engineered these for me." I clipped them around my wrists and slid the locks down tight. "Funny," I said, "last time I wore bracelets, I was going to destroy the world. Now I'm wearing them again to save it."
"If Mekion doesn't make you destroy it anyway," Nox said. "He scares me, Shadow."
"He and Doom both scare me," I said. "Well well. Speak of the devil."
At that moment, Doom himself floated in through the armory door.
"Bravo, Shadow," he said, clapping his hands. "Bravo, Mekion. You surprise me with your resourcefulness."
"Yay me," I said flatly. "What are you doing here?"
"The ARK is in close proximity to the Black Comet," said Doom. "When I detected your presence here, I came to investigate. You possess five of the Chaos Emeralds."
"Yes," I said. "I know where the last two are, and I can get them easily."
"As can I," said Doom. "But you were charged to gather them for me, and you are accomplishing that mission. Come with me." He turned and floated out of the room. I beckoned to Nox and followed.
"You saw what happened that day on the ARK," said Doom as we moved. "But you still do not understand everything that was happening."
"I know most of it," I said.
Doom eyed me with those red, faceted eyes. "Do you know why the artificial chaos creatures suddenly achieved mass consciousness?"
I didn't answer.
"It was because the larvae embedded in their robotic brains had hatched," said Doom. "My larvae."
I still said nothing, but felt a twinge of revulsion.
"Fifty-three years ago," said Doom, "the Black Comet passed by your planet. We entered your solar system long before that. You see--"
Mekion's inner screen loaded a vivid, high-resolution image of a purple and red planet.
"Our homeworld," said Doom.
The image changed to show a huge asteroid, more of a planetoid a third of the size of the planet, crashing into its surface. The clouds were blasting away, the crust fractured with red magma. A third image showed the planet tearing itself into fragments with the force of its own rotation and gravity.
"My people escaped in various spacecraft," said Doom, a note of sadness in his voice. "The majority in the Black Comet. We have been looking for an inhabitable planet ever since."
"Wow," I said. "That's ... awful." The scope of the disaster, of seeing a whole world obliterated, was something I had never witnessed. Suddenly I felt sorry for Doom and the Arms. "But," I said, "we need our planet. We were here first."
"Yes," said Doom, "but our plight is desperate. We must find a new world soon. Your leaders' negotiations were unsatisfactory. And we have watched your world for many of its years. We saw the Chaos Wars and the arrival of the humans. We saw the rise and fall of the Crystal Dragons. We saw the Chronowar and the Division following the Golden Age. Our race is ancient, Shadow."
"Then pick a spot and live there," I said. "Plenty of Mobius is uninhabited."
Doom did not answer. We had arrived at the twelfth circle, with the windows looking out into space. Below was Mobius, blue and green, swirled with white clouds. I had seen it since I was born, and the sight was somehow comforting. But Doom was not interested in Mobius. He pointed at a great shape silhouetted against it. The Black Comet. It looked like it had in my vision: a squidlike thing made of stone or metal. It was at least as big as the ARK. Around it floated tiny spacecraft, like minnows around a whale, and there were flashes and flickers of light.
"GUN has finally arrived to give battle," said Doom. "I expected them much earlier."
I gazed out at the ship without a word. GUN ought to be good at wiping out people on space stations. I sensed Mekion hovering at the fringes of my consciousness, listening and watching. I was being set up, somehow.
When I gave no indication of caring, Doom said, "The man who killed Maria. You remember him clearly."
I nodded.
Doom motioned to me, and Mekion loaded a snapshot of him. I shrugged. "So what?"
"Private Striver is now a general," said Doom. "He serves as an advisor to the human president, and has a particular vendetta against you."
Mekion pulled up another image. A gray-haired man in his late sixties, one eye blue, the other brown. I felt a twist in the pit of my stomach. He still lived ...
"From what I have learned on the information networks," said Doom, "Striver never overcame the guilt of taking the life of a young girl. He erased all data connecting him to the incident, and everyone who knew about it disappeared. Everyone but you." Doom paused to let this sink in.
It did. I felt that old thirst for revenge ignite inside of me. Mekion kept the images open as if to reinforce it.
"General Striver is leading the assault on my people," said Doom. "Remember what he and his kind did to you, Shadow. They have never done you any good. Assist me, and I will give you the tools to destroy them."
"What tools?" I asked.
Doom gazed at me for a moment. Then he laughed. A terrifying, deep roar of a laugh. "Come with me, Shadow, and we shall equip you for revenge."
Being outfitted by Doom was not as awesome as I had thought, though.
First, he summoned the Eye and teleported Nox and me to the Black Comet. We beamed down in a dark purple room lit by red bulbous red growths on the walls. Here and there stood some kind of pod that I didn't look at too closely. I don't like stasis chambers, and alien ones are too much for my stomach to handle. The air was heavy and thick, and made my eyes smart. It tasted smoky on the back of my tongue.
Doom floated away down the length of the room, leaving the Eye to watch us. Nox bent his knees and tried to hide behind me, which didn't accomplish much, seeing as he was eleven feet tall by this point. "This place is evil," he whimpered. "Feel it? It's like the Biolizard times a million!"
I listened. Well, it wasn't really listening ... it was like feeling the aura of the place, letting my senses, as well as my spirit, clue me in.
The malevolence struck me like a bowling ball to the head. When the Biolizard had been in hibernation on the ARK, everyone who set foot on the ARK knew that it was there. Except me, because I wanted the same things that it did. When I started trying to save the world rather than destroy it, I had felt the presence of its hatred and evil.
Now, standing on the Black Comet, I felt that same hostile presence and the feeling of being watched from all directions. Except it was worse. Whereas the Biolizard was but one enemy, here there were thousands. I felt the heat of their lava-blood, tasted their teeth, smelled their breath. They were everywhere, waiting to consume us and all of Mobius.
I gripped Nox's leg for support. I felt like I was smothering. Mekion appeared in the dimness to my left and folded his arms. "What're you afraid of, Shadow? The Black Arms are on our side. Don't get panicky."
"You don't understand," I snarled at him. "This is like the Biolizard. But how is that even possible? The Biolizard was just an experiment. It wasn't an alien!"
Mekion didn't answer because Doom was approaching. In one hand he carried a wrinkled, scaley thing, like an old snake skin. He held it out to me. I took it, trying to hide my disgust. It was heavy and it stank.
"That is an environment suit," said Doom. "I had to resize it to fit you. You can survive in a vacuum while wearing it, if necessary. It will also insulate you from the more noxious of the atmospheres on the ship."
"Oh boy, an alien space suit," I thought. I shook it open, identified the sleeves and pant legs, and pulled off my skates so I could put it on. I left the bracelets on, though. Mekion wasn't taking over my powers again.
The suit was leathery and rustled as I struggled into it. My spines kept catching on it, and Mekion's metal ones were the worst. But finally I got the thing on, and examined the front for a zipper or something. Doom stepped forward and ran his finger up the cut. It sealed for him without a seam, as if the leather simply grew together. But it didn't stop there. A hood-thing swarmed up my head, between my spines, down my forehead, up my face--
I ducked and clapped my hands to my face, then yanked them away--my fingers were scaley. I opened my eye cautiously. Some kind of transparent forcefield hovered an inch from my face, leaving my eyes, nose and mouth free. The air smelled canned, but otherwise I could not tell that I wore a faceshield. I looked down. Aside from my skates, which I slipped back on, I looked exactly like an alien. I wore black scales with red markings on the arms and legs. It felt like wearing a wetsuit; stiff in the joints and a little constricting. I looked at Nox. He looked revolted.
I turned to Doom. "How do I get this off?"
"You will have no need to remove it," he said with a wave of his hand. "Come with me. I shall show the position of our enemies."
"What about me?" exclaimed Nox.
Doom looked at him. "Oh yes. You will be safe enough here."
At once tentacles sprouted from the floor and wrapped around Nox's ankles. He screamed. "No no no! Don't let it eat me!"
"It will merely hold you," said Doom. He turned and floated on.
I hesitated, looking back at Nox. "I'll be back soon." I followed Doom. Still, leaving Nox like that felt like a bad omen. Once he gave up the emeralds, would they kill him? But he wouldn't give them up to the aliens, not while he could still fight. I felt the towering menace of the comet, and cowered inside. They would kill both of us in a heartbeat. Who was I kidding?
Doom let me down a passage that dripped with moisture, the walls rounded and shiny, like the throat of some enormous monster. I kept my eyes on Doom's back and tried not to look too closely. Behind me, the Eye floated silently.
We came to a large round window, with a magnifying lens in the middle of it. Doom laid a hand on it and swivelled the lens to point downward. It showed a telescopic view of a cluster of GUN spacecraft. There were about fifteen ships, all different sizes. They all looked like passenger jets, I noticed. They either had a tight budget or no imagination.
Doom moved a finger, and the window-lens zoomed in even more, on the biggest ship in the middle. It had a flat deck on top. Clear as crystal and very small, I saw a squadron of armored GUN mechs, led by one monstrous one. They moved into a close circle. There was a tiny spark of green, and they all vanished.
Sonic. I cursed him in a whisper. He was on the Comet with GUN now. I thought about it, and I didn't much care if they fought the Black Arms. The sheer size of the Comet assured me that their attempts were in vain. I just didn't want Sonic siding with my enemies. Not now.
"Where are they?" I asked Doom.
He and the Eye exchanged glances. I recognized the look--he was conferring mentally with his counterpart. "The lower deck," said Doom. "Just inside the first flight deck. The teleport they used must operate on line of sight principles."
Of course, because Sonic didn't know what the inside of the Comet looked like, so he couldn't teleport there. I grinned in spite of myself. "Can I go after them?" I said.
"Feel free," said Doom. "Remember your pendant. If you have need of myself or the Eye, use it to summon us."
I sprinted away up the hall, eager for a knock-down, drag-out fight.
The trouble was that I couldn't find them.
I skated down winding passages, through vast caverns lit by purple light, through aisles of alien pupas with half formed Oaks inside them. The whole place was hot and stank like a filthy pet store, even though my filters.
Finally, I had stopped on the brink of a deep chasm, and was looking over the edge, when Mekion appeared beside me. "Hey genius," he said, "why not let me connect to their system and find maps?"
"I didn't know they had computers," I said, feeling foolish. It was so obvious.
"See," said Mekion, "this is why I should be in control."
He uplinked. I felt him slide through greasy protocols and handshakes, and watched on my inner screen as he slithered into the system. He felt as alien as I looked in my spacesuit. He found maps, all right. He also found a bunch of other things that he instantly tried to hide from me.
But ever since our encounter at his foundation where I saw the three laws intact, I have had a deeper foothold in Mekion than even he suspected. I obediently began following a mapped route to where GUN was indicated. At the same time, I did the mental equivalent of peeking over Mekion's shoulder.
The information downloaded to my brain at the speed of thought. It was so fast and so much that I had to catch my breath. Mekion spun around and blocked me, but I already had it all.
And I wished that I hadn't.
It was a video somehow recorded through the eyes of a Black Warrior. Another warrior lay on a bed in front of him, outlined in reds and yellows. His scaley skin was greyish, and a large wound gaped across his chest. As the observing alien watched, a film dropped over the dying alien's eyes, and its rattling breath stopped. At once a white, smoky substance rose from its body. Its soul?
As I made this connection, I saw a huge black thing burst through the floor, sieze the soul, and drag it downward, out of sight.
I recoiled in horror, but the observing alien looked on stoically. A lot of information followed in the alien language, but as it rolled through my mind, I found that I understood it.
Apparently, the whole race can see much further into the spectrum of light than we can. One thing they can see is a person's soul. For generations they had seen departing souls be dragged to a place of torment, so their culture became built around the things they liked best--like war. If you were going to suffer in the afterlife, you might as well enjoy this life! This was overlaid with layers of propaganda. The leader of the race--Doom and his Eye--told his people that the more sentient races that they killed, the less they would suffer in the afterlife. This was followed by a video of a black alien dying, and its spirit unexpectedly ascending in a beam of light.
I fast-forwarded through the information as I skated through the Comet, coming closer and closer to the attacking GUN mechs. The religion of the Black Arms had shaken me. It was based on tangible evidence, even misdirected into Doom's own ends as it was. How did one argue with what they saw? Did humans and Mobians also go to a place of torment when they died? What about Maria? Was she suffering right now?
These questions fanned my hatred of GUN into a towering inferno. If Maria was suffering, then Striver would suffer ten times as much!
I rounded a corner and saw three mechs battling a squad of Oaks and Warriors. The lead mech--a huge, armored thing with rockets and pulse lasers--was felling aliens left and right. 'Diablon' was painted across its cockpit. I clenched my teeth and charged.
I sprinted across the room, leaped into the air, curling into a spindash--when Sonic flashed out of nowhere and intercepted me, knocking me out of the air. I slammed into the floor and bounced to my feet.
Diablon turned to face me, and there was a moment of quiet. The aliens and mechs all stopped fighting to watch. Sonic wore an oxygen mask over his nose and mouth, with air filters on its sides. Handy--no tank required. "Nice outfit, Shadow," he said, muffled behind the mask. "You look just like one of your little alien pals."
I couldn't care less about Sonic. My eyes raked Diablon. Inside the cockpit was a human with gray hair--Striver. I recognized him, aged though he was. The man who had killed Maria.
The mech itself floated on a hoverpack, lacking legs. Two heavy poles protruded from its shoulders, generating shields around it. To destroy the mech, I had to destroy its shields.
"Get out of the way, Sonic," I snarled. "If I have to hurt you, I will."
"Shadow, we're trying to stop the invasion!" Sonic exclaimed. "If we fail, then they'll wipe out Mobius!"
I pointed up at the Diablon. "Striver killed Maria, Sonic! Once he's down, I don't care about the rest of you."
Sonic deflated like a popped balloon. He stared at me, then at Striver, then at me. I took advantage of this to leap over his head, curl into a ball, and strike at those shields.
I sank through them with an electronic buzzing in my left ear. They only repelled energy blasts! Well well. I struck a shield pole, rebounded and crashed into the cockpit. I glimpsed Striver's horrified face as I dropped back to the floor.
It was then that I realized that my suit had sealed tight to my skin, leaving my spines exposed. Especially Mekion's deadly metal ones. I grinned.
Striver wasted no time. He charged his shields with a crackle of green light, and launched twenty-five rockets at me. I broke into a skating run, and the rockets blew holes in the floor. To my disgust, the floor quivered and purple slime welled up to fill the craters.
The Diablon swooped after me with a screech of jets, and the other mechs and aliens scrambled out of the way. Sonic, however, stood in the middle of the room and watched us fight.
I doubled back and ran under Diablon for a look at the hoverjets. Its arms lashed at me, and the massive hands on the ends came uncomfortably close to grabbing me. I ducked away, ran off to get some breathing room, and came face to face with Sonic. He gazed at me thoughtfully. "What?" I snapped at him as I swerved around him.
As I spun to face the Diablon again, I saw the Eye. It lurked high up, near the ceiling, almost invisible in the dimness. But its glowing iris gave it away. "Hi Doom," I said. I got up a running start, spindashed and smashed into the Diablon, almost snapping one of the shield poles.
As I rebounded and landed on my feet, Doom said, "Beware of the energy cannon. It is a nuisance." As he said this, I saw the building glow on the front of the ship, just below the cockpit. I ran for it.
A blue-white laser cut across the room, slicing the floor, the walls, the ceiling, in one wide arc. 'A nuisance' was putting it a little lightly, I thought, as the beam nearly bisected two Black Oaks. As the Diablon finally shut the beam off, I ran up behind it, jumped through the shield, and applied my metal spines to the already dented shield pole. This time I tore it off. Static washed through the left side of my body and I tasted ammonia. The shield on the Diablon's right side went dead, allowing me room to tear it apart without interference.
I would have, too. But Sonic got in the way.
He appeared in front of me, arms out to shield the Diablon. (This was purely symbolic, seeing as one of its fingers was as big as his whole body.)
"Get out of the way, Sonic," I growled.
"No," he replied. "This ship is the only weapon we have that the Black Arms are afraid of. See what they did? They got you all upset so you'd destroy it for them."
"Striver killed Maria," I said. "It has nothing to do with his robot or the Black Arms." Mekion materialized to my left, hands clenched into fists. We faced Sonic together.
Sonic stood his ground. "If you didn't know who he was, would you still fight us?"
I looked at Mekion. He bared his steel teeth. "That doesn't matter," he said through my mouth. "What matters is that you're in my way." Mekion lunged forward and punched Sonic in the face. To my shock, Sonic fell backwards, holding his jaw. I looked down and saw that Mekion's body sprouted from mine, so that we were joined at the mechanical arm. I had actually punched Sonic.
Mekion looked at me with bloodlust in his eyes. "Let's kill him." I did the only thing I could do.
I turned and ran. Mekion laughed at me all the way.
They let me go. I could feel Mekion's control trembling within my limbs, living and robotic. He could have made me kill Sonic and I would have done it. The only reason he had not chaos blasted everything were the bracelets on my wrists, containing the power.
Who was I now? Was I Shadow, or was I Mekion? I kept skating. I just needed to get away from everyone. I fled, trying to flee from Mekion. But he was inside me, living as I lived. Which of my thoughts were mine?
I fled down black corridors, through domed rooms with floors of red and purple liquid, past rows of cocoons containing the next generation of aliens, past machinery that pulsed green and yellow. Finally I had to stop and rest. I halted on a sort of balcony overlooking several levels of platforms, all moving in and out of a huge ultraviolet lamp. Each platform was covered in eggs.
I stood there panting and alone. I wished that Nox were there. I had no idea where in this place he was anymore. I needed him to tell me if I was Mekion or Shadow, because I had lost track. I looked back, half-hoping to see him running after me. No sight of a black and gold bird, but sailing toward me was Doom and the Eye.
I stood and waited. There was nothing else I could do. Inside me was Mekion like an alien in a cocoon, writhing, trying to get out. I shook so hard that I had to grasp the gooey balcony railing to keep from falling down.
Doom inclined his horned head and studied me. "You have brought us all but one of the Chaos Emeralds, Shadow."
I nodded, willing my teeth not to chatter.
Doom held out a hand. In it was my orange Chaos Emerald. I opened my mouth to ask what he had done to Nox to get that emerald, but he said, "You know the location of the final emerald. Go and retrieve it."
Mekion reached out and took the emerald while I watched. "Did you take Sonic's emerald?" I managed to say through my teeth.
"Yes," said Doom. "He was preoccupied with his broken jaw."
I broke Sonic's jaw? Horror hit me like a lead weight, but Mekion laughed uproariously. "He was lucky to escape with his life!" he said with my mouth.
I cupped the emerald in both trembling hands and thought of Mecha. "Chaos relocate," I whispered.
