Chapter 23 Operation
Sonia was in the waiting room outside the infirmary. The two closest men in her life were in there, and she was out here helpless. Shadow had been taken in with multiple shrapnel injuries. His ears damaged. The ear drums were starting to deteriorate, but thankfully his Chaos energy was helping him as much as it could. Shade was in far worse for the wear. His physical mutations had slowed but not stopped. The scales and the mental connection Umbra would be extremely difficult to remove. And if that wasn't enough, his body wasn't healing its wound like it normally did. It was healing slowly, almost non-existent. This was a night that would haunt her if things went badly.
Along with her in the waiting was really the rest of Earth Protectorate. Emily was so tense that a pin dropping would have made her jump. Crystal was almost as tense. Beside her was Lucas who had Crystal's hand in his. He was trying to his own fears for his friend and Shadow. Jet wasn't here because he was on an air strike, but Wave was inside the operating room helping Tails run the medical droids and Hurk and Storm were out in waiting room, playing Go Fish to calm themselves. Sally and the President were off to meet with dignitaries of basically the rest of the world to decide what to do with Umbra. Manic was sending all available droids to fight off the two fronts: Beijing, and to finish the Ukraine. Amy was trying to keep herself from crying. And Whirl was passing in front of the infirmary along with his father.
The two had been in the emergency room for hours. None of the people in the operating room had come out, but droids had come in with equipment, blood, water, skin grafts. No one dared to look inside. Sonia feared the worst and so did everyone else. Neither of them had looked good when they gone into surgery.
She was so kept in thought; Sonia almost did hear the small voice beside her. "Sonia? Is Shade going to be okay?"
Sonia looked to her left to see a young batgirl, her eyes red and puffy from tears. Sonia forced a reassuring smile. This was hard. "Don't worry. Cosmo and the others will fix them up in no time."
Emily looked at her; the tears were starting to flow again. "What will I say to him when he comes out? I hurt h—"
"Don't think like that!" Sonia interjected softly. "He'll understand he's not an idiot. I just hope it will be my little Shade that comes out along with my husband."
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Don't you want the power?
Shade was in the statue room again. They were in same positions as before. No thing had changed.
"Why should I trust you anymore?" he spat at the voice. "You told me Umbra was in China and that he would be in my father's shape. Instead, I find that I have been fighting my father the entire time and almost killed myself. You had me try to kill the man I've wanted to know since I was born! You bastard!"
Shade approached Shadow's statue. The sight of his father in the torture devise still sickened him to no end. He swallowed his fear and touched the statue.
Squish
"Ewww!" Shade exclaimed after he saw what he was standing in. He was standing in biotech. Only one race used biotech: the black Arms. And they were everywhere. There were soldiers everywhere. They walked; they flew; they burrowed. And they were all moving like they were ecstatic. Like something great had happened for them.
Shade walked down the hall. He was thoroughly freaked out, and Black Arms walking through him was not helping in the least. The tunnels were a maze. But he was following a voice. Not just a voice, but his name. He was being called. Someone, hopefully from his planet, was aboard. He ran as fast as he could. He came to the end of the tunnels. And what he saw made the blood in his veins freeze.
In front of him was a dead end with all sorts of devises for holding prisoners and 'interrogation'. At the very forefront was a prisoner, beaten, bruised, and so bloody you would think he should already be dead from blood lose. His once perfect black and red fur was no stained with dirt and blood. His gloves were now shreds on the floor. By some miracle, his old jet boots were still there, but now they were so blacked and beaten, he didn't think they would ever work again.
"Sh . . . ade . . ." his father breathed. "Why?"
"Father," he approached the beaten man, "I am here." Shadow did not head him. "Dad!" he screamed. "Don't die! Please! Stay!"
His pleas were cut short. For he heard a cold laughter approached the chamber. It came closer and closer until the source was to be seen.
Umbra strutted in, a bottle of Sake in his hand. He strutted over to Shadow. "I hope my little brother is enjoying his suite?" he asked mockingly ash patted Shadow on his broken head. Shadow took a good bit of air to keep himself from screaming in pain. "I told them to give you the best possible treatment. I believe this is your second voyage with me, my dear brother. I think it would have been most productive of you, if you had stopped Shade."
Shade's eyes almost popped out. What?
"Yes," Umbra continued, his fanged smile, "pity he, Crystal, and Shade's little girlfriend had to die. They would be able to spread much more use for me. Entire generations of Half-Black Arms. But that what happens when you don't plan ahead. At least they still live here." Umbra gently pressed a claw on Shadow's thinning white chest fur. "But maybe, you'll be able to see your grand children, little bro. Thanks to little Shade's mind set in my grasp; I was able to set up some of the others. Course, I used the other children as starter kits for the experiment on young Emily. I think only Whirl survived. I had to use their generation or things would not be nice. And you will be able to witness your great-great-great-great-great-great- grandchildren fight by my side, if things go according to plan."
Umbra waved his free hand and four pairs of footsteps came down the hall. Both father and son gasped at the morbid (well more morbid) sight before them.
There were three hedgehogs and a bat. At least that's what they used to be. One was Shade, his transformation far, far more advanced. He seemed to have no more fur. Only black and red scales adorned him now. The gothic looking designs were larger and the leg spikes were longer and they were bone white with red veins stretching through them. Next to him was what he thought was his sister. She was morphed just like he was. Her fur was scales and the former red fur was in gothic designs. Instead of legs spikes, her legs were twisted backwards. Her eyes were white and her hands were claws. Emily was almost the same other than she was wearing about nothing other than a like bone looking bikini. Her wings were huge, yet they flowed behind her like a thin purple cape with large bumps. Her eyes were the same except they were no slited like a snake. There were black tattoos all over her body they were like the symbols on the Eclipse Ray. And lastly Whirl was the mostly drastically transformed. He had four arms, only one cyloptic eye and his scales were now lime green and two large scars ran across his chest. His quills were bent and twisted into various shapes. Coming out of his back was a single black raven wing. In each of their hands was a large claymore sword.
"Little brother," Shade heard Umbra whisper, "this is your future."
He was back in the statue room. He was crying. What he saw . . . if he had been stronger, there would have been no chance of that happening. Now . . . he had come to close to ending a peace filled future. To causing the deaths of all his friends and family. To becoming a monster. To becoming putty in Umbra's hands. To injuring his father. He broke down on his hands and knees. How could he do this? He was weak. Plain and simple. He had failed his family, especially his father. The very father he had dreamed of having since he could remember. He had failed his friends, especially Emily. The girl he had loved with his entire heart. He had transformed into a monster. This was all his fault.
He looked around the room, through his tear filled eyes. The Umbra statue was gone. Shadow's statue was that of scene of the room he had just left. The four mutations of life, Umbra with his arm around Shadow and a wicked smile adorning his lizard face, and Shadow, beaten, broken and immortal was crying. His stern manner was gone. He had nothing left to live for. There was nothing. His seriousness was gone to leave a poor broken man whose grief of so many lives had burst through.
Shade looked up into the darkness that made up the ceiling of this horrid place. He yelled into it, his voice full of fury. "I know who you are, Umbra. Show yourself!"
The room shook violently. The dark ceiling split into black clouds under a red sky. They twisted into a spiral letting one figure slide through the middle. Umbra floated down, his wings and arms wrapped around his body and his head down like he was in trance. He touched the floor. He awoke. His eyes jutted open and his wings spread. If it hadn't been for the fact that Shade hated this guy's guts, he would have found the sight impressive.
"Do not think me a fool, child," Umbra spat at him. "Did you enjoy my handiwork? Impressive, no?" He walked over to Emily's statue. "I think my illusions worked rather nicely. You still believe them, I see."
"You lied to me," Shade spat with a voice far beyond his years. "I trusted my own blood to kill you. You told me that through the 'voice of my heritage'. What a bunch of crap!" The room shook again.
Umbra face was stern as stone. "I don't need you approval to take what I need. You are in no position to fight or demand things from me. You can't even do a simply lasting Chaos Control without my aid. If you think that I will let my new plaything go that could seriously grant me the greatest of the assimilations then you have no mind to begin with."
"Come on . . . Come on . . ." Cosmo breathed as she went through surgery. She was having no success with Shade's mutations. The body's defenses had finally realized that these things were not suppose to be there but they were of little real help. The mutations were just spreading too fast. Her and four medical droids were working on Shade. Seven other droids were operating on Shadow: three for the shrapnel, four for his ear drums. All her experiments upon Black Arms DNA were utterly useless. If she could find the source of this monstrosity she might be able to stop this.
Beep! Beep!
She gasped and turned a glance at the scanner screen. In Shade's circulatory system, an anomaly had appeared. She ordered the droid make the picture larger. It accessed the computer and the electron microscope showed a patch of blood work. It was Black Arms blood.
In Shade's and Crystal's bodies there was a delicate balance between Hedgehog DNA and Black Arms DNA. They were born that way so they had the abilities of a High Black Arms such as Chaos techniques, but the body and mind of hedgehog. This patch of blood work was not native to Shade's body because the DNA was so varied with so many life forms. It had only just appeared on the scanners. This had to be it.
She set up the x-ray up. Now they were so small you didn't have to leave the room. She put it over the area the blood work was centered. Right over his left arm. Right over where he had been injured in St. Petersburg. Cosmo flipped the switch on and the radiation fired into his body. The screen depicted the blood work flaring up and was spreading as thin as it could. She increased the width of the radiation and the penetration power to cover the entire area.
Statue room shook violently. Umbra looked around surprised.
"What?" Shade said smirking. He could take wild guess that Dr. Prower (Cosmo) had found something. "No more light shows?"
Umbra scowled at Shade. "This isn't over, brat! I'll have my weapon. I'll have the Emeralds. In Chess you have to sacrifice a few pieces for a victory."
Umbra dissipated into smoke and so did the statues. The room continued to shake. The darkness that was the ceiling began to crumble. And the pieces were falling inside the room. They weren't small. Shade ran has fast as he could in the small space to avoid being crushed.
Then . . . the shaking stopped?
Cosmo looked at her work. The foreign blood was neutralized. Shade's mutations had stopped. And some of them were staring to reverse. The scales were disappearing before her eyes. And the bone white spikes had started to shorten.
Cosmo looked over Shadow. The medic droids were working relentlessly. Her eyes darted over to the control room. Tails and wave gave her a thumbs-up with a smile.
They would make it. This was their first major victory in the war.
Everyone. You can breath now. THEY LIVE! YAY! I hope ya'll are enjoying this as much as I am. Maybe I should send this into SEGA. NOT! No way will I let them get a hold on Umbra. MINE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! MY PRECIOUS!
Now I will answer all of your little reviews.
White Keyblade Oathkeeper- Ok. Is all ready in production or I am I just sitting here talking about something that doesn't exist?
flowergirl220-I think that this chapter answers those questions. But there won't be any physical deformities on Shade; Shadow may just be a bit deaf. I might change my mind about that but for now; he'll be a little deaf in his right ear.
XT-421-Having a mass murderer chase you is never a good thing. Thanks. Just 'cause they're all alive doesn't mean there won't be scars from this. You can't just shrug this sort of thing off. I ain't that easy. But thanks again. I hope you continue to like this.
Koike-I know. I found of a demon form of Shadow and used it for the base of Evil Shade. I edited my own version and might put it on my Deviant ART account so keep watch. I think you should change Cream to Tikal. Let me guess. Tikal will be Rikku. Rouge will be Paine, and Amy will be Yuna. Am I right or am I right?
Well bye everybody for now. I'll work hard on the next chapter. It will contain A LOT of Shadow/Sonia, Lucas/Crystal, and Shade/Emily fluff so if anyone's got any suggestions about it, THEY ARE ALL WELCOME!