Sonic:The Last Standing
Chapter 12
The Sacrifice
A lamp flickered on and off in the dusty room. The walls were rust covered, and the floor was dirty, and rough as concrete. The air smelled of mold and mildew, but the doctor did not care.
He watched as Sonic outran bullets. The doctor's cameras were everywhere, hidden. Robotnick stared endlessly at Sonic. He changed since he last saw him. His quills were longer, his blue was darker, his eyes had a sense of maturity in them, a sense that every living soul thought Sonic could never achieve.
Robotnick's cameras kept up with Sonic's jagged turns and sprints he used to flee the bullets.
There was no one to talk to here. No robot, no lackey. Just the doctor and his mind.
And silence. The past silence. The impending silence.
The silence that would always be there.
He stared down at the crude controls. Wires were exposed, buttons did not glow or have any color, but only did their action, and nothing more.
Decoration and flattery such as that were a thing of the past. A habit that died a terrible death five years ago.
He watched Sonic run. Dodge. Roll. Yell into his intercom. Sally was still against the back of the turret, desperately trying to shut it down. Sonic couldn't dodge forever. The doctor knew this.
He had a special plan for that. Sonic can dodge, but can he dodge something following him?
Sure, he has evaded complex codes of missiles that lock into him before. But this one was better, faster, stronger. Five years in the making of a single bullet. It was perfect. It had to be perfect.
The doctor gazed down at the two buttons.
He pressed the first one.
"This is step four."
The doctor watched.
A pang of panic shuddered in Sonic.
"What do you mean it isn't shutting down?! If you broke all the wires-" Sonic began to yell, still outrunning the bullets.
"I broke them! All of them! Nothing is happening!" Sally yelled. You could hear the struggle in her voice.
Suddenly, the guns drooped. The bullets stopped searing Sonic's tracks. Sonic stopped. Sally must have shut it down.
He fell to his knees. His legs were pulsing. He must have been running for at least fifteen minuets in a full burst. Sonic normally, on his best day, did that for a minute max.
"Sonic!" Sally's voice came muffled. He realized that his earplugs were turned off. He gingerly pulled them out. The sound was gone.
"Did the bullets touch you?" Sally immediately checked him over.
"You turned it off!" Sonic choked out as Sally enveloped him in a hug.
"Sonic...I didn't do anything." Sally admitted, "My hands were digging through my pockets when that thing shut down." She said.
The doctor saw the two. Right in front of the turret. Hugging. Smiling. They were happy. That's how his life could have been, had he been normal.
But he wasn't. He didn't mind.
The second button lay untouched.
A chuckle rose in the aged doctor's throat. It turned into a screeching laugh, then a scratching, inhuman howl.
"This..." He said once his laughter died.
"This is step five."
He pressed the button.
"What?" Sonic breathed. He wanted rest. He wanted to find everyone. He wanted to help the ones that were hurt. Get back to peace again.
"That means it's not over. That means-" Sonic began.
But he never finished his sentence.
The top gun, the odd one, moved. It spun towards Sally, locking on her. Sally looked up, seconds too late.
The bullet went faster than Sonic's eyes could trace. In an instance, Sally was on the ground, letting loose a strangled mix of a gasp and scream.
"Sally-!" Sonic barely managed before the gun turned again.
Straight at him.
He got to his feet and ran for his life.
The bullet fired. Zero to one hundred in less that a second.
But Sonic was already well past two hundred.
Sonic sidestepped to his right, expecting the bullet to hit the wall to his left.
But his rapid eyes saw nothing.
Sonic realized that this bullet was following him. Again he sidestepped, ducked, rolled, and preformed every well practiced evasive move he knew.
The bullet still followed.
Sonic had no choice but to pour in the speed.
Black. That's all Tails saw when he opened his eyes. At first, he feared he was blind, but then the darkness wavered. Like gas.
Like...smoke.
Tails coughed violently. He tried to push himself to his knees, but his arms were weak with the smoke draining his energy. He gripped the table leg and pulled himself to his knees.
He tried to stand, but nearly fell over again. Stars filled his vision. He couldn't.
"I have to turn the machine off...I have to open the door...I have to help stop Robotnick...I have to..." His thoughts were scrambled. He desperately reached over the table to feel for the switch. He found a wire. The switch to turn it off was too high to hit.
He pulled the wire without hesitation. Even though breaking the machine, it was clearly worth it.
Tails began to crawl over to the door. He coughed more. The smoky air was not satisfying.
He slammed on the door.
"Help..." He moaned, "Please...help..."
The door began to break. Tails' arms gave out. He managed to back away.
There, busting the door down, was Knuckles.
Down alleyways, around buildings, even on rooftops. Sonic ran everywhere. The bullet still followed his path easily. Sweat beaded on Sonic's forehead for the first time in years. How long had he been running since the attack started? Too long. For him to grow tired, especially on such an adrenaline rush, was unheard of.
But he kept going. Soon, cramps began pulsing in waves through Sonic's legs in mid-run. Sonic gritted his teeth, knowing that screaming would only halter his air flow, which could slow him down.
Sonic's hurt ankle was now just another pain to ignore. He had to shake this bullet. If not, then his ankle, or probably his legs as a whole, could be permanently damaged.
A sharp pain tingled like the tip of a knife on one of Sonic's back quills. He picked up the pace out of reflex. The pain stopped. He risked a glance behind him.
There, inches away, the blurry, ever moving bullet chased him.
Sally only saw and heard fragments of the world around her.
A flash of light.
Sonic running.
The sun in her eyes.
A figure above her.
She felt herself being hoisted up in someone's arms.
"Sonic...?" She absently said, not knowing wether it was her voice or her mind.
The figure shook its head. Long ears draped down.
"Clover...be brave..."
Sally went limp.
Sonic could not think of a way out of this high speed trap. No matter what he did, the bullet kept right on his course.
And he was slowing down.
Sonic's mind raced. That riddle might be of help. He quoted it in his head.
"A trap for the trapped, a paralyzing scream, a life kidnapped, a loss of a dream. Find your speed, and find your light. Decode this creed, try as you might, you won't save all from either plight."
Sonic knew what the paralyzing scream was. And the trap...
"This must be the trap." Sonic gasped out as he turned a sharp corner, almost scraping his side doing so. The bullet still came.
"But the plight? Bullets? That's been a common thing...the only common thing." Sonic ducked under a table and ran out. The bullet matched his exact path.
"It means...not everyone will make it out of this unhurt." Sonic breathed. He thought of Sally.
But if this bullet kept on, he might end up the same way.
Gale woke strapped to a bed. She had failed. Her mission, was trashed. She looked around to see doctors bustling about.
She felt a couple of bands of cloth around her head.
"Shadow...?" She croaked once she saw Shadow staring out the window.
"They took it out." He bluntly said as he loosened the bed straps. "You're free now." He placed a hand on her head bandage. She placed one there too.
The voice in Gale's head was gone. No voice to yell and echo unendingly in her mind.
"Thank you." Gale said. Shadow let his arm drop.
She gazed into his eyes.
But nothing happened.
"Some of my powers are gone." Gale said as she stood.
"That's because they were in the chip. The doctor wanted to make sure that you lost something as much as he did, if the time came when you were to take it out." Shadow walked her out of the hospital, ignoring the pestering of the nurses and doctors.
Suddenly, once outside, Shadow saw a young dog running with a limp figure in his arms.
He saw Sally. Her face was pale, and there was a single, dark red blood stain on her white shirt. Blood dripped from Sally's wounds to the dog's trembling hands.
"But...Sonic would never let Sally get hurt..." Shadow breathed. He stopped the dog and picked up Sally in his arms.
"What happened?" He asked the dog. The dog wrote furiously on paper. Paper? Why-
Then it hit him. This boy was deaf.
The paper read.
"She got shot. Another bullet is after Sonic. It keeps following him. I think she is "
The writing stopped there. The dog hesitantly wrote the last word.
"Dead."
Sonic ran. He was at the end of his rope. He had no ideas. He had no plan. Worst of all, he had no energy left.
His eyes drooped. His legs no longer had sensation, but an automatic impulse to run. The wounds from before bled, threatening to make the hedgehog collapse at any second.
"I...I could slow down maybe...I could just rest...a little...no harm in it..." Sonic slurred in between breaths.
"Sonic!" A voice boomed.
He turned to see Shadow, running beside him.
"Where is Sally?!" Sonic immediately gasped out once he saw blood on Shadow's arms.
"She is at the hospital! Worry about your situation!" Shadow growled. The bullet stung Sonic's back again. Sonic cried out in pain. He couldn't go any faster...it hurt too much.
"I'll try to divert it! Just hold on for a couple more seconds!" Shadow barked as he drifted right, away from Sonic. At this point, Sonic didn't care who helped him.
For once, Sonic was desperate.
Sonic saw Shadow's black blur circle in front of him. Then behind him.
"Sonic! You need to get some distance in between you and the bullet! If you do, I can come in between and stop it!" Sonic heard Shadow shout.
Sonic let loose a groan.
"Faster...faster...faster..." He tersely willed himself to speed up. Almost instantly, sound ceased.
Sonic just broke the sound barrier.
The world was a blur. He looked behind him. The bullet was a good five feet away from him. Sonic wished he could stay in this soundless place for awhile, but breaking the sound barrier took the remaining energy out of Sonic.
Sonic slowed down. The bullet wasn't behind him. He saw Shadow running...the bullet was after him now.
"Now, go after the Chaos Emeralds! If you turn Super, then you can destroy the bullet!" Shadow yelled as he ran.
Sonic stopped running. He gasped as cramps came like a brick through a window.
"Move Sonic! Now!" Shadow barked. Sonic's bag was only a few yards away. He just had to get to it.
Suddenly, the bullet sped up. Shadow, unaware of this, made a turn.
"Shadow!" Sonic screeched.
The bullet went straight through Shadow's arm. Shadow howled in pain and fell to the ground. The bullet began to turn around.
To finish the job.
Time slowed down. The emeralds were but five feet away. If Sonic were to get them, it would guarantee his safety.
But that means he would not be able to get to Shadow, who screams on the ground as the bullet closes in to kill him.
Sonic glanced at the emeralds, then at Shadow. Shadow would not survive this.
But could he?
He hoped so.
Sonic ran, abandoning all hope of destroying the bullet, and shoved Shadow harshly away.
The world went white. Sonic felt his bones vibrate. His teeth clamped shut, his eyes closed so tightly that it hurt. A persistent ringing shrilled his ears. He saw his knees buckle. He placed a hand on his waist. Blood?
He coughed. More blood.
"Sonic?!" He heard Shadow's voice shake. He never heard it do that, "No...NO! Gale! Get help! Get help NOW!"
Sonic felt himself being picked up. An indescribable pain blasted though him.
Then Sonic saw nothing.