Chapter 29
Me: Onward and all that stuff.
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Though it was only a few weeks into the healing process, Nadja was making marvelous progress. She would be able to be her normal self for longer and longer periods of time, without her childish side interfering. But still, Voyant would have to briefly take over her mental processes in order to do so. During these periods of sanity, Voyant was able to view Nadja's memories, most of which were of her childhood. His suspicion was aroused one day during one of his scans.
"Nadja…this one is unlike any others I've seen. The feeling I'm getting is terror…think you can explain it?" But the girl could not answer him. She could also see the memories her "therapist" was viewing as well. Her entire body was quivering with fear, for she knew all too well what it was Voyant had stumbled upon…the root cause of her entire situation: the day of her father's death.
Elias saw Nadja's growing fear, and held her hand tightly to reassure her. But Nadja's vision was consumed entirely by what she saw on that day:
"I've come for you, Mephiles!" Shadow roared as he approached the crystalline hedgehog.
Mephiles was obviously unafraid and was lazily examining his claws. "Oh, come now…you truly expect to defeat me? You do remember what happened nine years ago, don't you? If you couldn't defeat me at that age, what makes you think you can do it now?"
"Trust me…I will!" Shadow snapped back.
"Giving up your immortality by crushing Black Doom was your greatest blunder," Mephiles mocked. "You have no chance now. Without the Chaos Emeralds, you're nothing to me now." Shadow scowled.
"Don't listen to him, Daddy! You can do it!" Janus called back, still trapped in the force bubble. Shadow smiled. Then, with a look of determination, he began to remove the rings on his wrists. Mephiles noticed this, and his expression turned fearful.
"Shadow, you fool! You realize that without those rings, the amount of power you absorb could destroy you! Are you that willing to throw your life away for these children?"
Shadow remained as determined as ever. "These children matter to me far more than my life. I will stop you and ensure that they live on, even if it DOES kill me!" With the second ring off, Shadow began to concentrate.
Slowly his body began to glow, seeming to lean toward gold, but then his body started flashing all the colors of the rainbow. His roars of anger and righteous wrath rang throughout the city as the very ground beneath his feet shook. A few moments later, a wave of energy surged across the park, forcing Mephiles back a few inches, while the children had to cover their eyes, so bright was the light.
Suddenly, it all stopped, except for a constant whooshing of air and crackling of electrical energy. Shadow had reached the level of Hyper Shadow, and knew that it would very well cost him his life.
Shadow wasted no time and was upon Mephiles in an instant, delivering a crushing blow to his gut that shook the entire city with its impact. Shadow then did a ferocious spin kick, sending Mephiles reeling, and twisting his head almost 180 degrees. But even that vicious assault wasn't enough, and Shadow knew it. As the crystalline hedgehog spun through the air, Shadow warped to him, and delivered a two-handed blow so tremendous that the force shattered every window in a six-block radius. Mephiles crashed to the ground with incredible amounts of force, which would have uprooted several trees had not the park been muddy from a recent rain, so the mud absorbed the impact. Shadow raised his hand and formed a Chaos Edge, a ethereal blade of Chaos energy, around his hand, then dove straight at his evil counterpart, and thrust the Chaos Edge right through his shoulder.
Janus and Nadja didn't see the fight, as they were still blinded by the bright lights and explosions. But Shadow's son knew that his father was victorious, as he heard Mephiles groan in agony, and the balls of force disappear.
"Yeah, Dad! You're awesome!" Janus cheered, but before he could cheer more, he heard his father gasp and gurgle. As Janus and Nadja rushed over to the crater, they recoiled as they beheld a horrible sight: Mephiles had thrust his hand through their father's belly. He had just reverted to normal on impact. Both separated, Shadow now beside his children. Mephiles was clutching a ghastly wound on his shoulder, but had a wicked grin on his face.
"I win, faker," Mephiles chuckled before he disappeared.
Nadja suddenly screamed at the top of her lungs and broke away. She ran headlong into the leafy forest, far too quickly for Voyant to stop her using his telekinesis. Elias, without a word or a glance, followed her as fast he could. He was slower than she was, but he wouldn't give up the pursuit.
The chase, which lasted for about ten minutes, led Elias to a large lake with sparkling, clear water. Nadja had stopped at the lake's shore, and was staring out at it, sobbing and weeping. The echidna could only assume she would try drowning herself again, so this time he rushed up to her and grabbed her arms, and pulling her away from the lake and back into the forest. He did so quite violently, but his desperation prevented him from being gentler. Once the lake was out of sight, Nadja started to calm down, though she was still shivering a lot.
"Nadja…what the hell has gotten into you?!" Elias screamed, now starting to cry himself. "I know what you saw was painful, but…" But the echidna couldn't finish his sentence. Instead, he found himself tenderly stroking Nadja's right arm.
"I'm sorry I was so rough…did I hurt you?" he asked. Nadja blinked and got a questioning look on her face. She was stunned by the echidna's sudden change in tone, as well as his actions. She always liked when Elias was in physical contact with her, but she wasn't used to this sort of contact at all. Still, she liked it. Despite his size and power, she knew Elias always had a gentle touch. She had witnessed it…
"Elias, come see!" Nadja, in her childlike state of mind, called to him. Elias came over and looked at a shirt that was hanging on a laundry line. A baby bird, probably no more than a week or two old, had fallen out of a nearby tree, and by sheer luck, into the open pocket of the shirt. Elias poked into the shirt and examined the baby bird. It was chirping incessantly, calling for its parents, who were probably out looking for food.
"Aw…it must have fallen out of this tree," Elias said. " I'll put it back!" He reached into the shirt pocket and closed his large hand around the baby bird. Nadja gasped, fearing Elias would accidentally crush it, but she gazed in child-like happiness to see the bird unharmed…
Nadja snapped out of her memory to feel Elias' strong embrace, and that he was rubbing his muzzle on hers. She closed her eyes and started to ask him a question. But before she could even ask it, she realized that Elias was already answering it…
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"Oh, I do wish I knew where Miles and my little Icarus were," Cream sighed as she and Violet sat at a small table with a few chairs and a single light bulb hanging over it. The rabbit, now in her forties, was the spitting image of her deceased mother, and even wore a similar long dress, except it was blue rather than pink. Violet, having since regained her old clothes, was grumbling as she mindlessly scribbled on a piece of scrap paper with a pen. Cream's sighing was starting to drive the hedgehog crazy, and she slammed the pen down on the table and stomped to the rabbit and got right in her face.
"Listen, lady…I'm SICK and I'm TIRED of your complaining! If I hear you say anything like that again, I swear, I'll burn your face off!" Cream was stunned by Violet's burst of anger and was about retort, but stopped herself. As a mother and a school counselor, she had gained an intuitive sense of what people were hiding.
"I'm sorry if I bother you," the rabbit replied calmly. "It's just that I love Miles and Icarus very much…it must be hard to have never known love of any kind." The hedgehog took a step back, and her normally tough and aggressive expression disappeared, replaced by one of vulnerability and confusion. She wasn't sure why, but this rabbit was right. Violet couldn't remember a single moment in her life that she was loved. She stepped away so that half of her body was in the dark, half in the light.
"I…I…guess so," Violet replied. But before much more could be said, the beeping of a cell phone suddenly broke the silence of the room. Cream shuffled through her purse and removed a small cell phone in order to answer it.
"Hello?" Cream asked. "Oh, Tahra how are…what? Oh, that's terrible!"
"What is it?" Violet asked, but Cream simply thrust her hand forward to keep the hedgehog quiet so that she could listen. After about another 45 seconds of talking, Cream hung up and shook her head despondently.
"Sorry, dear. A friend is bringing over another. Apparently they were attacked by two robots. Both survived, but one was blinded."
"What about the hospital?" Violet asked. Cream replied that it was in one of the controlled areas of the city, and it was patrolled by robotic guards and hired enforcers.
The entire city of New Sylvania was completely under the tyrannical thumb of ProwerCorp's Board of Directors, save for a small district called Mobius Corners. Here, an underground resistance had formed, under the leadership of Kande, and several other Mobians gifted with extraordinary abilities. Their current location was underneath a chili dog restaurant owned and run by an owl Mobian named Bert Who. They had managed to avoid be tracked to Mobius Corners thanks to Kande's knowledge of the company's tracking technology.
Violet sighed as she comprehended the gravity of the situation. But soon her thoughts were interrupted when a rat Mobian came in with Tahra and Amy. Both were dressed in sturdy street clothes, though both wore rings around their fingers as testament to their undying love for their lost husbands. Amy had one arm around Tahra's shoulder, while the other was clutching her eyes, gritting her teeth. Cream took Amy and sat her down as the rat Mobian returned with a strange metallic box. As this was happening, Violet and Tahra happened to meet gazes.
Both could swear they were staring at their own reflection…
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There was nothing but the stillness of eternity for Rydia as she languished in her cell. It had barely been a month since she lost Geof, yet she had no way of knowing that. She could not see the sun and moon, so she had no way of tracking time. Her meals were served on an irregular basis, so she had no schedule to determine the time of day. The only clue she had was there were regular times when the cave would be filled with noise and activity, and other times when it would be quiet.
As if losing the concept of time wasn't torturous enough, she rarely had physical or social contact with any being, even the mindless skeleton guards that had taken Geof's place. Once in a while Tositox would pop in to check on her, but he would never speak to the bat. Being alone wasn't so bad before she met Geof…there weren't many people her age back home. But knowing love for the first time, then losing it so quickly left her crushed and distraught. It was also slowly causing her mind to deteriorate, and she knew it.
In order to keep herself sharp, she would try to amuse herself in various ways. She would make up stories about the characters from her comics and mumble them to herself; or other times she would start humming theme songs from the shows she had back home and sometimes she would sing them and dance around. And when the urge became too much to bear, she would pleasure herself like she did when she read some of her comics, even if a skeleton guard was in the room. This habit of hers was something she was somewhat ashamed of, but then again, would these wretched creatures care? She would soon find out when she got an unexpected visit from Tositox's master…the earth abomination Linnorm.
His arrival consisted of his massive form slithering into the room where she was being held. It was large enough for the beast to raise his upper body, while the rest of it remained outside. Like Tositox, Linnorm was nearly skeletal with leathery skin stretched over it. Some of the skin was torn, and Rydia could see his empty ribcage. His eyes were pinpoints of green flame, and his breath, which seeped forth from a mouth filled with long, serrated teeth, like that of a shark, had the stench that smelled of all the worst scents: rotten eggs, feces, decayed earth and moldering corpses. Even the normal smell of the cave was heavenly compared to his. As Linnorm looked at Rydia, he chuckled at the sight of the mortified girl, caught in the middle of her session. Rydia shut her legs tight and looked away from the monster that had interrupted her.
"My, my, I see our little prisoner has ways of keeping herself occupied…do continue," the beast chuckled with a low hiss. Rydia frowned at the beast as she got her underwear and pants back on.
"You pervert," the bat retorted. "I refuse to do that in front of the likes of you. Go away." Linnorm's eyes glowed brighter with anger, but he calmed himself down. He wanted to crush her, but the beast knew that even he could not touch Rydia if she was to remain pure for the revivification ritual. Instead, he continued to stare at her, silently. At first, the bat didn't react and decided to sit back down and turn away from the beast. But as time went by, she could still feel his presence. She could feel the power of his stare in the back of her head, but still she resisted. More time went by and Rydia could still sense him. He was still there, his decaying body looming over her, his disgusting breath slowly filling the room. It was driving her off the wall. The bat started humming quietly to get her mind off of him, but his presence refused to be ignored. She started singing more and more loudly, her thoughts racing every which way.
Finally she couldn't take it. All she wanted now was for him to go away…she didn't care what she had to do to make him leave. She turned around with her eyes forced closed as she pulled down her pants…and when she was finally finished, Linnorm nodded.
"That's a good girl…" the beast said as he turned to leave. When he was finally gone, Rydia lay face flat on the floor and sobbed, mourning her dignity and her self-respect…
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Janus: You monster you.
Geof: IMMA KEEL YOU DEAD, AUTHOR BOY!!!
Me: Uh oh…-runs away-
