Chapter 49 – Black Wind Awakens

The time: early morning, but for the observer, entirely irrelevant. The place: an almost entirely abandoned space colony in high orbit over the planet Mobius, a world that, as a rarity compared to the also-technologically inclined worlds of X and Raven, had multiple, very segregated intelligent species. Recent events had allowed a very minimal opening of borders between the Mobians and the Terrans, the two most dominant in number on Mobius, and the orbiting space station, created by the latter of the two species, was designed for the most incredible technological advancements in space travel, planetary and orbital colonization, and weapons. They called it ARK.

Sleep. Sleep was the only purpose for the single being still living within the metal walls of the small, manmade continent. He had little interest in the Mobians or the Terrans, and just as little for the Islanders, the third most dominant in number on Mobius. Artificial atmosphere and environments that was almost entirely generated from the sun's exceptionally powerful and unfiltered solar rays gave him all manner of things to do, but he chose sleep most often.

At least… when things were normal. And for a while now, he stirred in his sleep, sensing something very abnormal that he fought to ignore. In a hibernation slot built and hidden into the floor of one of the science and research chambers (lights dimmed green and set to 'inactive' mode) he hid from anyone who might disturb him, but he was beginning to consider finding the cause of his unrest.

Eventually, when the visions and sensations began to accelerate and intensify to utterly aggravating proportions in the most recent days, he awoke uncomfortably in his snug space and his wall-to-wall, personally designed armchair. A vicious and rage filled huff effortlessly sharpened the features of his face despite a length of sleep that may have been coma-like. His mind worked with swift deliberation as though he had been active for hours, and he began delegating himself priorities.

Quick to sleep, quick to wake, he thought on the side of his more formal preparations for the coming minutes and hours. He despised that he was not the only person with such traits and abilities.

He tilted his neck with the aid of his palm, and as he pushed on his thick, black locks with their blood-crimson highlights, a delightful series of cracks rippled through the base of his skull and his cervical vertebrae. A similar sensation on the other side made him let out a half-sighing groan.

"I swear…" he said with an ominous tone grafted into his vocal cords; he tapped a small button on the arm of his seat, "this had better be worth my time."

He recalled the last occasion he was awoken as the various red alert lights flashed on (he had long since smashed the devices that emitted the most annoying of klaxons in combination with the lights) and once again the unsealing of his self-imprisonment began, but his recollection was interrupted by a presence that he sensed directly above him, one that made him tense. Anyone who could sneak that close without him noticing was clearly…

Bursts of jet-fire from his boots matched a timed, somersaulting leap, and he curled his body into a spinning cyclone, ripping the seal above his head into bent metal scraps and shrapnel. His feet smacked the ceiling for a brief second, and he dove through the field of sparks that his destruction had released, aiming for the chest of the target.

Cold steel met his dive kick firmly; his target hovered above him in mid-air, and his foot dented the floor. It was odd and infuriating that the very colors in his upward periphery identified the intruder.

"I should have known…" he snarled, staring up at the sneak-thief, a woman he was quite familiar with. She was built with many of the features of a white bat, just as all Mobians had the resemblance of lesser animals. Her wings were not any wider than her arm span, but they allowed her to hover and glide well enough to evade his kick, something that few had the reflexes to do. Large, triangular ears on the top of her head could detect even the tiniest sound or physical sensation, granting her the knowledge that she was going to be attacked well before it happened, and even the ability to gauge her own movements in silence was hers.

"Hmph, what kind of way is that to greet a lady?" she huffed haughtily, hands on her hips as she hovered to the ground. "Then again, I suppose I shouldn't expect a hug and a smile from the stone-faced Shadow the Hedgehog, now should I?"

Shadow grunted elegantly, if there was such a way to grunt with distinction. He was not a hedgehog in the sense that he had a bulging back of hard spines. Rather, the frame of much of his body was very human-like aside from the animalistic traits of Mobians that made him classified as one. He was slim and strong, although like most Mobians did not have visually defined muscles, and his spines were less spines than they were fur and hair like the rest of his body, most of it black. Some patches of it, particularly in acute triangular shapes on each arm and leg were crimson red, matching the highlights on his head. His 'hair' was more fashioned as a statement of style, arcing violently in larger spine-shapes that jutted away and mostly upward from his head. However, with a single muscular gesture, Shadow the Hedgehog could tighten those 'spines' into very sharp, very deadly weapons if he needed to. The irises on his large eyes that could bore into anyone's confidence were also deep red, and gold bands were clamped tightly around his wrists, just above his white gloves. A tuft of pearly fur sat on his chest, because, like many Mobians and Islanders, being unclothed was not necessarily inappropriate. It was often more of a question of being aesthetically pleasing.

"Rouge…" Shadow stated simply. His feelings toward this woman were, like most of his interactions, rather difficult to define.

The Mobian woman he stared at was what many other people of the Mobian species (and even many Terrans) would consider voluptuous, a fact that she flaunted quite often, and her deep voice added to it by giving the impression that she could work as an old-style lounge singer. The curves of her hips and breasts were strong, and she wore a pale purple, sparkling lipstick that matched the color of her chest plate and blended well with the darker purple-black of her jumpsuit. Occasionally she switched off to the color rouge, after her namesake. Her legs appeared relatively slender beneath those curves, and her custom boots (white, thigh length, and leather of course) had irritatingly cute heart shapes at the toe of each boot. Shadow, however, knew from first-hand experience that those boots were lined with a flexible metallic alloy and that her lightning-fast kicks could bend steel and snap bones if necessary. Both of them had short, thin, often unnoticed tails behind them, his black, hers white and protruding from a tiny holy for it in the back of her outfit.

"I come all the way out here, and all I get is 'Rouge'?" she mocked his deep voice and pouted. "Well, that's a fine way to hurt a lady's feelings!"

"I don't have time for that," he said broodingly with his forceful palm raised, commanding the flow of conversation. "What's been going on? What's happened to the chaos emeralds?"

When she returned with a look of confusion and surprise, he almost mimicked the reaction with bewilderment of his own.

"Isn't that why you came here? Don't you need my help?" Shadow asked.

When she still had no response but silence and a shrug of her wings and shoulders, Shadow knew that either she had no clue as to what was going on, or that perhaps there was something very wrong with him. His discomfort was sheathed beneath his stern posture and consistent angry glare.

"It's been months since we've seen or had contact from you, Shadow," Rouge frowned with a frustrated sigh. "We were just worried about you. That's all. And I… well, I missed you, damn it. Is that so wrong?"

A lid of discomfort stifled his breathing for a subtle moment; his stance softened slightly, but once the impact of the comment faded, he reverted to his standard, socially defensive posture. Rouge let his indiscretion slide. No matter how much his callousness hurt, she knew it was part of who he was, especially when something was the matter with the world.

"Maybe I should be the one asking what's happened?" she asked, quick to change the subject. "You said something about the chaos emeralds. You were designed to be in tune with them, so you must sense that they're being used."

"That's right," he nodded. "What's happening on Mobius?"

"Nothing," Rouge answered him, almost with a feminine exhale of boredom and contempt for a world that ought to be more entertaining.

"Nothing?" Shadow said. Was she even treating him seriously, he wondered? "You mean to tell me that while I've had dreams and visions for weeks now in ways that I've never had them before, all of which involving war machines, superhuman power, strange golden triangles and the emeralds… that nothing is happening on the planet?"

That brief inflection was a hint that he was considerably, for all intents and purposes, pissed off.

"I wouldn't lie to you, Shadow," Rouge tried to calm him. "You know I work for the Terran government, and – I swear, don't ever repeat this," she warned – "I've done considerable spying on them for my own curiosity's sake in addition to all my normal tasks. I know more about the Terrans than their own President does, and I chat with the guy on a regular basis. Seriously, we've got each other's most secure phone numbers on speed dial."

"I see you've been climbing the corporate ladder," Shadow interrupted.

His slight grin on that face of constant seriousness made her smile hard, even if it wasn't a friendly one. "I… well, I don't do it for money's sake," Rouge blushed, struggling to maintain seriousness like he always did. "I may enjoy large gemstones and priceless jewelry and the occasional mani-pedi, but I know that information can sometimes be more valuable than any shiny rock."

"Just don't let curiosity kill the bat," said Shadow as he passed by her, presumably to the center of operations for the ARK, but Rogue, cheeks getting a bit rosier, forgot to consider where he might be going.

"A joke? That must mean you're actually happy to see me!" she beamed deliberately in a way that was certainly not reserved, but not over the top, either. It was the type of reaction that she knew, deep down, Shadow could at least tolerate, perhaps even like with enough patience.

"Just don't try to force me to say it," the dark hedgehog said. He was beginning to think that maybe his visions were nothing but bad dreams. It's not like they had never happened before, he considered to himself, but still, he had to be sure. "So you're saying that nothing out of the ordinary is happening with the Terran world at least," he prompted her.

"Nothing that would interest you, certainly," said Rouge, picking up her pace to catch up to him. "There's always the secretive weapons development, a few criminal issues, homeland problems with left wing, juju-smoking hippies, diplomacy with the Islanders and Mobians… you know, all that crap I have to deal with that doesn't really deserve your glorious attention."

"What about the Mobians, and Robotnik?" Shadow asked next.

Rouge was quick to answer. "Eggman's behind bars, and hopefully he'll stay that way this time. Last I knew he was under a half mile of water and surrounded by several six-inch thick walls made of reinforced titanium. The location of the prison itself is a government secret – not to me, of course – and it has enough firepower to take down an armada of subs and planes."

"Hmph, they should execute him."

"Shadow!"

If anything, the black hedgehog's arms crossed even tighter. "I think they all underestimate Robotnik's uncanny ability to dodge and escape the most impossible of situations despite his rotund torso," he growled. "After all the warships we've seen blow up with him on it, I'm beginning to think he has well beyond nine lives."

The white bat woman smirked at him with a gentle flirtatiousness. "Maybe his parents were cats?" she joked.

Shadow huffed and didn't respond otherwise. It echoed against the metallic doorway they approached, just before it graciously opened for the two of them. Remnants of ancient battle in the form of scarred machinery, exposed wiring and smashed computers and light fixtures served as a reminder of why the dark hedgehog disliked the humanity of the species on Mobius, Terrans, Mobians and Islanders all included.

Learning how to fix these things was one of the few things he did when he was awake aboard the ARK. When he was younger, it had been something that he took interest in, back when the ARK was still populated with scientists, passengers, and various other tenants.

He cringed, and a shiver wrung his spinal column, leaving an unpleasant feeling coursing through his veins. That was the past. No one but him lived aboard the station anymore.

"What about the Islanders?" Shadow broke the silence through the long hallways that sometimes distracted the unaccustomed with semi-panoramic space views. Rouge was certainly not an exception with an eye for anything shiny.

"As far as I know, nothing," the white bat Mobian continued to answer. "I deal with them the least, at least on a professional level, but they're as xenophobic as ever. Probably more than the Terrans have been until the past few years."

"But you do go there for personal reasons, I imagine," Shadow rasped with particular disdain, and Rouge was hugely taken aback by the tone.

"For the sake of avoiding a fight, I'm going to forget you said that," Rouge huffed angrily, hand on her hips. "And quite frankly, I can be friends with whomever I like, and furthermore, that's all that we are, if that."

"If you say so."

"I do," Rouge glared.

Shadow completely changed the subject; a pointless argument was avoided. "Do you think it's worth considering that the Echidnas are never doing 'nothing'? Our friendly-neighborhood Guardian of the Emerald alone was seldom up to nothing. Their infrastructure and democratic hierarchy are too constantly in a state of self-checking for inactivity, especially since their return from the void was only a handful of years ago."

"Ooh, I didn't think of that," said an intrigued Rouge. "What do you think they're hiding?"

"Don't know," Shadow said with a minute rise in pitch and inflection. "But I plan to find out."

Rouge had long since learned that those signals in his tone indicated that he was curious and therefore interested. But even before that, she could have predicted what he was going to do. Once he was awake, Rouge had never experienced him to allow things to move along by themselves when the emeralds were involved. Actually, Rouge had never experienced him to allow much of anything to be carried on its own volition when he was awake.

Rouge clumsily stumbled backward when Shadow pivoted on a pinpoint in the opposite direction.

"Shadow?"

He stopped. "Are you coming?"

"Wh…what? We're leaving right now?" Rouge stumbled.

"I am. You can come with me or follow me in your own ship, since you must have one."

"Goodness," she leaned against the glass looking out over the planet and the stars. "You don't waste a second, do you?"

Shadow the Hedgehog huffed plainly considering the rhetorical question, and he decided to answer it.

"All the Chaos Control in the universe can't stop my time. There's never a moment to waste."

He looked back for a brief second. "So… are you coming?" asked the black hedgehog.

"Well, when you put it that way, a girl doesn't have much of a choice, does she?" winked Rouge at him.

"Good. We'll take one of the ARK stealth pods," he explained. "I don't want people to find or recognize you in your ship. If the Echidnas notice either of us, they'll get awfully protective of whatever it is they're hiding. We'll be much harder pressed to find it then."

"Yes, sir," she responded with a bit of flirtatiousness. "Floating Island, here we come!"

We're not going sightseeing, Shadow thought while Rouge rejoiced over the coming vacation that she could probably pass off as professional spying for the Terran government. He then changed his perspective on it. I don't know the Floating Island well. Perhaps I can let Rouge indulge herself a bit while getting to know the city undetected. Her presence alone shouldn't provoke too much concern, even if she is a thief.

As they continued through the dim halls of the ARK, Shadow planned his strategy for infiltrating the Echidna High Council based on all the available information he had read and studied from the computer banks on the space station. Hidden to him entirely, Rouge was forming plans of her own for the great city of Echidnopolis that didn't involve him in any way.