Chapter Twenty: The Deepest Darkness
Everybody was gathered in the park in Central City that wasn't far from the front of the President's house, which was barely within bounds for people to walk.
Shadow and Rouge had dated there about eleven months after they'd first admitted their love for each other. Sonic and Amy and Silver and Blaze had done so a few times as well.
The park wasn't too badly damaged, all things considered. The smog from the battle would have bad repercussions for some of the trees, and about eleven square meters of grass had been burned and singed, but the rest of the park was completely unscathed.
The reason they were all there was because it provided a good landing zone for the helicopters that would be picking them up shortly. Rouge was on the comm. With Vice-Admiral Zachary at the moment.
"Yes sir, we're at the pickup zone now" Rouge said. "Oh, and sir? Make sure that they have a huge, hot pizza with our names on it for when we get back.
The young naval officer chuckled. "Very well, Agent Rouge. You all earned it, and much, much more. A welcoming party is being planned for you right now. See you soon. Zachary out."
"Sweet!! A party? Damn, can this day get any better?!" Sonic chortled. "Of course, after that, Amy and I need to head back to Mobius to help them out with their teleportation device so they can get their army here. But still, I need to blow off some steam!"
"I'll second that!" Tails chuckled, and high-fived Sonic.
Shadow, meanwhile, noticed that the only one in the group that looked somber was Shade the Echidna. The black-and-crimson echidna was looking around warily, as if afraid they might be attacked again soon.
"You alright, Shade?" Shadow asked, somewhat annoyed that Shade's demeanor was dampening his own elevation.
"We must leave; it shall be dark soon" Shade said, turning so everybody could hear him.
"Yeah? So?" Sonic asked. "I'm not afraid of the dark!" Shade sneered at the blue hedgehog, who ignored it; he got looks like that and worse from Shadow.
"Mephiles' army still lives, and now that he's dead, they will hunt us down with extreme prejudice!" Shade said severely. "Rouge, are the copters almost here?"
"Yep! They'll be here in about a minute" Rouge replied cheerfully, giving Shadow a playful slap to the back, saying; "You done good, hedgehog. That'll do."
Shadow just smirked and ruffled Rouge's big ears.
"Helicopters?" Blaze said, breaking away from the conversation she'd been having with Silver. "Ugh… why copters? I hate heights, and I puke my guts out on those things every time."
"I guess you're sitting next to Knuckles then" Amy said with a chuckle. The red echidna sighed and shrugged his shoulders.
"Why can't Shadow or somebody just Chaos Control us out of here?" Blaze said exasperatedly. "How hard would that be?"
"One, I've never been to or even seen Guardkaku; I wouldn't know where to go, even if I had the coordinates" Shadow answered. "And two, I would be pretty worn out transporting over two hundred soldiers halfway across the continent."
"Fine, fine, just get a bag ready" Blaze growled.
"Ah Blaze, just close your eyes and you'll be alright" Silver said with a smile, grabbing Blaze's hand. "I'll help ease your stomach, okay?"
Blaze smiled back at him, albeit a bit uncomfortably.
Suddenly, Shadow felt a cold breeze blow past them, and it sent a shiver down his spine…
The ebony hedgehog looked around him, and he suddenly felt the same discomfort that Shade had a moment ago…
Something bad was about to happen.
"Look! You can see the copters from here!" Tails suddenly shouted. "We're going home!"
Shade looked at the copters, and then at the sun, which would setting in about an hour.
"Please tell me that Guardkaku is to the west so we can maximize sunlight" he muttered darkly.
"IF NOT, I CAN LIGHT SOME OF OUR ENEMIES AFLAME AND USE THEM AS CANDLES" Omega said helpfully, holding up his reattached arm.
*Southern border of Central City*
The Lost One Hades directed the rest of the orders to the platoon of monsters before him, ordering them to regroup with the rest of the survivors of the blockade, and to rendezvous at the park in front of the President's house. Then, Hades took off into the sky.
The second-in-command of the Lost Ones was furious. Most of his brethren dead, his master destroyed, and they'd suffered serious losses to the blockade's numbers while their enemy suffered no more than maybe a hundred casualties to their infantry.
It was insulting.
So, Hades flew down to the area where Mephiles had fallen to see that the Sword of Chaos still laid there.
Then, the Lost One started to wait.
*Central City Park: One minute later*
By this time, everybody was eagerly watching the helicopters as they slowly approached. The flying vehicles were roughly five minutes away from landing to pick them up. There was about fifty copters, most of which were modified to hold more people than standard ones. They were being escorted by a few dozen Black Hawks as well, which would carry the Black Arms officers.
Yet even though they were almost out of there, Shadow still couldn't shake the uneasy feeling he had, and neither could Shade.
"Agent Shadow, Agent Rouge? This is Zachary, I'm on board" Rouge's comm. crackled. "Since all these heavy-armed copters qualified as a guard, the Commander let me come to congratulate you personally."
"Thank you sir" Rouge said with a grin. "Sure you didn't come just to see my shining smile?" she added, knowing it'd annoy Shadow (who wasn't really paying attention).
Zachary just chuckled. "Sure, why not?" he replied. "All right, make some room, we're-"
But just as the helicopters began their final approach, a black figure screamed across the sky, and blasted right through the copter Vice-Admiral Zachary had been in. Then it turned and fired a missile, blowing down another copter.
"Hades!!" Shade snarled.
"L.Z.'s hot!! Look out!!!" a pilot screamed just as one of the downed copters crashed into him, causing him to crash and explode upon the ground. Most of the other copters pulled up away from the explosions, including the bigger ones made for holding more people.
Shadow, Rouge, Shade, Sonic, and everybody else scattered out of the way of the crashing helicopters. Blaze, unfortunately, was cut off from the other Mobians as she dove to the left of the copters.
The copters pulled up and readied their weapons in case Hades came back. But then the problem got even worse.
Hundreds of Mephiles' monsters began to swarm towards the G.U.N., Black Arms, and Mobian forces.
"Take cover!!" the Black Arms commander shouted, firing at the advancing monsters. The dark-violet and black monsters roared a terrible battle cry, and began to return fire.
The enemy blade-projectiles tore through the humans and aliens alike, either killing them instantly, or when they exploded in their chests.
The Black Arms commander gunned down a few dozen of the monsters himself, and dragged a wounded elite who had its entire calf blown apart behind some rubble, reloaded, and tossed an energy-grenade at the enemies. Then he accessed his comm..
"Black Fist, sir, we need serious assistance!!" the commander shouted. "The human Vice-Admiral Zachary has been killed, and close to a quarter of our evacuation ships are downed! We need reinforcements and additional pick-up!!"
There was silence on the comm., and then Black Fist replied; "Confirmed, commander. We are sending aid now. Standby, just hold on awhile."
"Yes sir!" the commander replied, and then rose over the rubble, and continued to fire.
They were all now completely surrounded. Blaze, and more than two dozen G.U.N. soldiers and Black Arms were protected on three sides by rubble and a huge, fallen tree. The warrior cat was blasting fireballs practically non-stop at the advancing enemy, halting them and inspiring the troops with her.
Shadow, Rouge, and the others had managed to find good cover as well as the troops that were with them. Shadow, Shade, Knuckles, Rouge, Sonic and Amy were engaged in close-combat, wreaking havoc on the enemy's numbers. But more and more monsters seemed to come out of nowhere. And they were still quite tired from the battle with the Lost Ones.
Shadow was impressed by Shade's skills, slashing and hacking through the monsters, using many of the same maneuvers and techniques that Shadow himself used. The echidna and hedgehog found themselves watching each others' backs from the monsters, blowing them apart with Chaos Spears and Chaos Lances.
Shadow reminded himself of how many times he and Shade had fought each other before, and took comfort from knowing that such a deadly warrior was now on his side.
Rouge tore through a dozen monsters of large size with her deadly Tornado Kick, and was then surrounded by about twenty more monsters. She roundhouse-kicked them all aside, leapt in the air, and tossed a bomb down in her wake, blowing up eight more monsters.
Sonic, Knuckles and Amy were all back-to-back in a sort of triangle, fighting through the monsters with Tails keeping them covered from a distance with his newly-modified blaster. Between Sonic's lightning-quick attacks, Knuckles' endurance, and Amy's steel-hard devotion (and mallet), they were impossible to overwhelm.
Cream and Cheese, meanwhile, couldn't do much. So the young rabbit just stayed under cover close to Tails, holding her Chao protectively.
Silver was picking up monsters, and hurling them into their comrades. He would also freeze enemy projectiles before they could hit his comrades, and hurl them back to kill over a dozen monsters at a time.
But the monsters kept coming, thousands upon tens of thousands.
"These must be survivors of the blockade that regrouped with an additional force from outside the city…" the Black Arms commander muttered while reloading his rifle. "That means Mephiles had a backup plan in case things went wrong. Blast it!!" With a growl of frustration, the Black Alien leader picked up a sword from one of his fallen soldiers, and hurled it as hard as he could. The blade skewered itself into the head of a monster two and a half meters tall, and it collapsed and killed two more of its smaller brethren.
Silver glanced over at Blaze, who had now engaged the monsters in melee combat. She was passionately laying waste to dozens of them, punching them with fire-lit hands, setting several aflame at a time. She spun around in a fiery dance of death, showing no more remorse to her enemies than they deserved.
Blaze's passion reminded Silver of the extent of the love they felt for each other.
The choppers flew back, and began a strafing run on the enemy ground forces. A few monsters got a lucky shot, killing one gunner and one pilot on two different copters. But the downed helicopter crashed into their ranks, killing a few more monsters.
For a moment, it looked like they'd be able to turn this disaster around, and go home.
But things usually get worse before they get better.
In this case, it became much worse.
Hades returned, and fired another burst of missiles. He downed two more choppers, but the Black Arms, the choppers', and G.U.N.'s combined fire drove him off.
But Hades wasn't the real problem.
Before the choppers could get even one more shot in, hundreds of Chaos Spears blasted from multiple directions, engulfing them all in flame and ripping explosions through them all. They almost crashed into the ground, but an unseen force hefted it up, and hurled it towards an area that protected about fifty G.U.N. and Black Arms soldiers, killing them all.
"What in blazes…?!" the Black Arms commander breathed, gripping his rifle tightly. "Everyone, look alive!! We got a new threat inbound!! Repeat, a new threat!" Then the Black Arms leader went back to firing at his enemies alongside his comrades…
Only, he noticed nothing was firing at him or with him either.
He turned and saw Mephiles the Dark standing only a few feet away from him, holding the Sword of Chaos.
"Surprised? Don't be" the dark being said calmly, and ran the sword's entire length into the Black Alien's torso.
"I cannot be killed" Mephiles went on as if he and the Black Arms leader were having an idle conversation. "It's simple, really. Every time I'm destroyed, I rise again later. If I'm assisted in returning, it can be as little as a month or two. If I'm own my own, it could over a year. In this case, I had absorbed enough Chaos Energy to bring myself back together in just under an hour." That said, Mephiles drew the Sword of Chaos out of the Black Alien's body, and kicked him to the ground. The Black Arms commander gasped, and then passed away.
Shadow glanced over, and saw what just happened. His eyes widened at the sight of Mephiles. But then the black hedgehog gritted his teeth, and with a ferocious yell, he blasted a huge Chaos Lance from the tip of Dark Burner, burning over a hundred enemy monsters at once.
"God damn it!!" Shadow growled to himself. "Will that fucking bastard ever die?!"
"So long as we don't die fist, he will!" Shade replied, severing a monster's leg off and then stabbing it before it could fall.
Now that all of the high-ranking commanding officers were dead, Shadow and Rouge now had tactical command of the forces stationed there, as they were commanding agents in G.U.N. Rouge accessed her comm. and called all G.U.N. soldiers while Omega, Shade, and Shadow covered her.
"All soldiers, fall back to the President's house!!" she yelled over the noise of the battle. "Repeat, fall back to the President's house, it's not far!! The walls are reinforced for attack, we'll be safe in there!!"
So, everybody began to move as quickly as they could find cover towards the President's house. Luckily, rubble from the crashed helicopters had spread all the way to the steps that led to the President's house's doors. About twenty G.U.N. soldiers and Black Aliens reached the house, opened the heavy doors (reinforced with hidden concrete and two inches of titanium), and headed in. They kept the doors open for everybody else.
Blaze, meanwhile, lagged behind but was making progress with the eleven or so soldiers she still had helping her. Blaze burned her way through the enemy soldiers easily, and as her back was being watched by the best G.U.N. and the Black Arms had to offer, she was practically invincible.
Sonic, Knuckles, Amy, Tails, Cream, and the eighteen soldiers that kept them covered had established a position at the foot of the steps that led into the President's house. They covered a few stragglers as they made a run for the house, but a couple still got shot down.
Silver, meanwhile, was carrying ammo, a few wounded soldiers, and rubble (to shield the wounded) with his psychic powers. He turned to see Blaze slowly making her way to the stairs, and feeling like she could handle herself, he handed off some ammo and one of the wounded to the soldiers guarding the steps, allowing him to recharge his psychic powers a bit. Silver was about to go and help Blaze, but several hound-like monsters leapt at him, and he was forced to fight them off.
Blaze, meanwhile, continued fighting valiantly, feeling a bit elevated that they were close to safety. The soldiers with her fought harder than they ever had before, seeing her courage and valor.
Blaze was unaware that Mephiles was slowly walking towards her.
The dark being gestured to his soldiers to press their attack on Sonic and his soldiers, and then turned to face Blaze and her soldiers.
"We have suffered losses, today" Mephiles said, and now Blaze and her soldiers were completely focused on him. "But we can recover. The loss of my brethren is merely another necessary sacrifice for my final victory."
The Black Arms and G.U.N. soldiers fired practically point-blank at Mephiles, but it had almost no effect. The dark being slashed widely, cutting seven soldiers clean in half and sending the other four flying into rubble so hard it shattered their spines.
"My strategy remains the same" Mephiles stated, and punched Blaze across the face, sending blood flying from her mouth and nose. Blaze stumbled backwards, but still stood.
"A snake's body contains vital organs, surely, but the head provides the defenses and tactics that protect and keep the body organized" Mephiles went on, and suddenly seized Blaze by the throat. The Mobian cat tried to summon her fire powers, but they seemed frozen inside her.
"If you cut off the head of the snake – or in this case, the armies that protect your civilians -…" Mephiles said, raising the Sword of Chaos.
"The body dies."
And he heaved the Sword's entire blade into Blaze's stomach.
Blaze's eyes widened in shock and pain, locked onto Mephiles' demonic, green eyes.
"I shall win this war" Mephiles continued, as Blaze's eyes started to droop. "It's only a matter of time." And with that, he withdrew the Havoc Blade, and threw Blaze to the ground, and walked away.
Silver had only noticed this after he defeated the monsters attacking him, and by then, Mephiles had already withdrawn the blade.
His golden eyes widened, and he was frozen in shock.
Silver watched as Blaze's body slowly hit the ground, and the world seemed to slow down around him.
Tears came to Silver's eyes, but he didn't notice them. Shadow and Shade (who had just reached Sonic's position) noticed his state, not yet understanding why.
Suddenly, with a cry, Silver ran into the army of monsters.
The slashed at him, but the psychic hedgehog didn't care; he smashed them with his bare fists, sending them flying to the ground dead in his fury. Whenever a punch landed, a monster died. He smashed them aside, crying out as if he'd gone mad, killing anything in front of him. A giant monster stood in his way, but Silver just leapt upon it, dragged it down, and beat its face to a pulp until it moved no longer.
Then, he stumbled, and fell onto his knees in front of Blaze's body.
Silver's eyes again shimmered with tears, and a single sob tore through his throat, and he feebly reached out for Blaze.
Then, with a scream, he tried to leap back at Mephiles' forces. But Shadow and Shade seized his arms, and dragged him off while Omega recovered Blaze's body. They quickly ran back to the others' position, despite Silver's maddened attempts to get back into the fight.
"Door's open, hurry up!!" a Black Arms elite cried from the bottom stair at the President's house.
Then, Shadow, Shade, Omega, Rouge, Silver, and the last couple of soldiers entered the house, and slammed the doors shut, barring them and code-locking them.
They all caught their breath, and began to treat the wounded they had with them. But aside from some panting, the room was quiet. Most of the Mobians were staring in shock at what Omega had just gently put on the floor.
Everyone paid a silent respect to Blaze, whom Silver was now clinging to and sobbing. Most soldiers removed their helmets and hats at the sight.
Shadow sheathed Dark Burner, stared a moment more in disbelief, and then crisply saluted, which Shade, Rouge, Sonic, Knuckles, and Omega mirrored.
"This can't be happening…" Amy whimpered, and suddenly buried her face into Sonic's chest and cried as sobs wracked her body. Sonic gently embraced her, numb with shock himself as a single tear ran down his dirty face.
Knuckles collapsed on the floor, rubbing his forehead with his hands, feeling more tired than he had in a long time. Tails and Cream held each other as they cried as well.
"Everybody…" Shade said gently. "We're in serious trouble. We need to get out of here."