[This chapter is sexually explicit. If you're not comfortable with that you can skip it. This chapter contains graphic gore.]
Sheptilah awoke with a start. She had fallen asleep under a full moon but awoke to a waxing, pale yellow one. Was I asleep for days? She wondered. That's when the realization hit her: the lunar eclipse was this month, not next month.
She had fallen asleep outside under the lunar eclipse and completely absorbed the blood moon's energy. The cauldron continued to bubble nearby as if nothing had happened.
She looked down at her hands and saw her skin was vibrating slightly. Her chest heaved with fear of the raw, animalistic power that now filled her stone. The nails on her hands and feet extended into points and she felt her jaw change shape to accommodate the extra rows of sharp teeth in her mouth.
"No, no, no!" She cried to herself. "Oh gods, no."
"Sheptilah!" She heard Amy's voice call from nearby. "Tilly!" The hedgehog pushed through the brush.
The witch scooted back, covering her mouth with her hands. "Don't come any closer, Amy!"
"I've been looking for you! You're missing the lunar eclipse!" The hedgehog panted, trying to catch her breath. "Sheptilah?"
"No, I didn't miss it," there was a low, involuntary growl that came from the witch's throat. "Leave!" The primal urges were rising now with increased fervor and Sheptilah was afraid she'd kill the little pink hedgehog.
Amy froze in place. "Tilly… ?" Her blood turned to ice. Sheptilah's eyes were no longer lavender but instead a horrifying gold, glowing like twin suns on the horizon.
The woman slinked away deeper in the woods and hoped she wouldn't run into anyone else.
Thousands of miles away at GUN, Shadow's fur stood on end. His ears were completely stiff and swiveled in all directions.
"Is something wrong?" Rouge looked over and saw him acting strangely.
"Something is wrong with my witch." He absentmindedly scratched at the white tuft on his chest.
"Do you want to go check it out?" Rouge was concerned.
"... No." He decided that if it was dire enough she would summon him. "She's probably angry about something."
Sheptilah was wilder now, hair dragging behind her covered in woodland debris and mud.
She ran around on all fours; her legs having taken the shape of that of a dog or a cat but her arms remained the same, causing her to move unevenly across the ground.
Her breath was heavy and strained. Strangely enough she wasn't feeling a bloodlust like she anticipated but instead she suffered the more traditional kind of lust.
She ran great distances and jumped between trees to try and ease the rush of energy but it was no use.
She had no choice but to obey her body.
She fled to the lair, flying across the water and climbing up the outcrop. She stepped on the hot, bubbling lava without injury. She quickly raked her elongated fingers through her hair to get the grime out of it. With every last bit of willpower she focused on her body and returned to her natural shape.
She ran her tongue over her teeth and flinched. She still had rows and rows of razor-sharp fangs in her mouth and cut her own tongue.
"Fuck." She said to herself. She brushed off her dress and entered the lair.
Eggman had been keeping to himself for months now; not even speaking to the Egg Bosses. He was in one of his labs surrounded by large piles of used paper each with intricate weapon designs. When he wasn't killing time lifting weights he was modifying Metal Sonic to be impervious to wiccaphage attacks.
His work designing the Syzygy cannon, the 'big sister' of the Eclipse cannon, was nearly complete. He foolishly kept drawing Sheptilah in the margins of his blueprints, thinking about her and frustrating himself knowing he'd have to redraw everything from scratch.
The last time he had seen her was in March after he broke her heart and ruined his own chances at happiness. It was already June. If I had only kept my damned mouth shut, he thought.
Sheptilah entered the lair and skulked around, following the smell of Eggman's cologne. On all fours with her nose to the floor she must have looked hysterical. Like a wolf tracking prey, she silently approached him.
"Doctor," she said through gritted teeth, "I came to see how you were doing."
He was slightly startled by the sudden speaking of another but didn't flinch.
"You disappear for weeks on end and return when I have no time for you. I'm very busy." He did not look up from his work.
She struggled to maintain her shape. Her lower half was warm but her upper half felt freezing and she desperately wished for a sweater. She went up to him and gently squeezed his shoulders. "Unfortunately, you will have to make time for this."
He nearly jumped out of his skin at her touch. He kicked off the leg of his desk to turn his chair around and looked at her. Her cheeks were dewy and flushed, her fingers twitching and her hair a little frizzy.
"The Hell happened to you?"
"Unfortunately I was exposed to a lunar eclipse. I woke up about halfway through it. Amy was supposed to remind me of when it was but I suppose she forgot."
"Why are you talking with your jaw shut? Wait, the eclipse was tonight? "
"Yes." She lifted the hem of her dress and straddled him in the chair, which wasn't difficult as there were no armrests.
He felt a rock form in his throat and in his pants. She hooked her thumb into one of the straps of her dress and let it fall down over her shoulder, exposing a warm breast. Her body was a little different from when he last saw her. She had gained a good amount of weight and filled out nicely, with some extra padding here and there. She looked much happier and healthier than when he first met her.
"Is this a joke?" He frowned. "It isn't funny."
The witch's fingers began to turn into claws again so she quickly wrapped her arms around him to hide that fact.
"This is no joke. I would never do something so cruel." She bucked her hips against him. "I need your help. See, the red moon makes a Nannaeic behave like their true selves. For most of us it meant being violent."
Eggman swallowed hard.
"For me it seems to be split between anger and arousal. Please help me. You're the only person I trust to help with this."
"Can't you go prowl for somebody else?" His growing erection was struggling against the tightness of his pants. Note to self , he thought, buy sweatpants. Buy fucking sweatpants!
"What am I going to do? Walk into GUN and ask for a brave volunteer with an up-to-date life insurance policy?" She rolled her shoulder so the other strap fell over, exposing the other breast. "Ivo, please." Her voice breathy. She leaned forward and pressed her cheek to his. " Please ."
The pressure of her thighs around him felt like a trap. A wonderful, supple trap he wasn't sure he could escape. She continued to grind herself against his hardened cock, brief shudders of pleasure running up her body made her moan.
"Sheptilah." He put his hands on her hips, initially intending to push her away but instead they just lingered there. He was just as distracted by the sensation of having this woman rub up against him.
"My energy has to go somewhere," she kissed his neck, "It can't fly off freely. It may hurt someone. Trying to keep it in is hurting me right now."
This was torture for Eggman. Not since Lucinda has someone captured his black little heart like this and he was afraid it wasn't really him, but the bond. She already explained to him a while back that anything they felt was their own; but he didn't entirely believe her.
He turned his head away, exposing more of his neck for her tongue to dance across. His quiet groans, almost purrs, from the sensation encouraged her to keep going. She nipped playfully at his flesh, careful to not break it.
The man lives and breathes artificiality; creating robots that pretend to be alive and lying to the whole world that he is this big, confident and powerful Overlander. However, the very concept that his own personal feelings weren't real shook him to the core.
He worried that this same thing affected the witch, that she didn't really like him but rather the bond was forcing them into love; especially after confessing all of the heinous things he had planned for her.
You cannot unring a bell.
"I wanted to tell you how I felt for a while, now. I just… didn't have the courage to." She rubbed up against him again and moaned quietly. He had the urge to cover her Oracle Stone with his hand but knew it would hurt them both.
"I can't." He sighed and pushed her away. He then put her dress back up where it belonged. "I can't, Sheptilah. I can't help you."
"I need the release. I haven't been touched in five thousand years," her skin began to vibrate ever so slightly, "I want to be with you. I know you need the release, too."
"This isn't you. You don't want this." His hands shook.
"But I do, Ivo. I've just been terrified to tell you how I feel. I've wanted to be with you for a long time, now. I want you to be more than just my friend."
"Don't be stupid. This is me we're talking about. You hate me, don't you? You'd regret it." He swallowed. " We'd regret it." He gently brushed her hair out of her face with his hand.
"Are you playing hard to get or are you being sincere?" A low growl came out of her throat, but she still kept her teeth together. "Because I'm happy to play along if you need 'convincing'."
"I'm being sincere. The answer is no."
That was that. She gave up on trying to maintain her form and dismounted. The energy bouncing wildly inside her changed again. She became more like a wraith than a monster as the ends of her hair became transparent and floated like that of a ghost. Her hands and feet were stained purple like they were dipped in ink, but were thankfully no longer clawed.
She crouched on the floor, facing away from him.
"Is it… because I look like this?" She looked over her shoulder at him. "Are you afraid I'll hurt you? I wouldn't."
"A little; but the main reason is because I don't trust that you won't hate me more after the fact." He tried to calm himself by breathing in and out very slowly.
"If you change your mind I will be waiting in your room." She dissipated into a white form not unlike the wiccaphages and slipped out of the lab.
Don't put your dick in crazy, he thought. That's what the kids say.
He paused for a minute to think. What would happen if he didn't 'help' her? She did say it was hurting her but what did that even mean?
"O-Orbot? Cubot?" He spoke into his gauntlet. "Can you come here for a moment?"
His little robots floated into the room not long after. He crossed his legs to hide his erection from them.
"Yes, your roundness?" The yellow one asked.
"Calculate the number of characters that die in horror movies immediately after having sex."
"Accessing…" Orbot looked as if he was staring off into the distance. "Foreign or domestic?"
"All."
"Three hundred and forty two humans, seventy six Mobians." Cubot shrugged, "Why?"
"Out of how many movies?"
"Why?"
"Just answer the question!"
"Three hundred and three individual movies." Orbot looked at his brother.
"That's a seventy-two-point-five percent casualty rate," he huffed, "Boys; I'm going to die tonight."
"I'm sorry?" Cubot backed up. "Boss, have you been staying up seventy four hours at a time again?"
"I'll call for an ambulance." Orbot put his arm out over Cubot protectively.
"No, I'm alright." Eggman stood, causing his robots to shriek when they saw what he was hiding.
His room wasn't far from the lab he was working in. He quickly shuffled over and stood outside the door and hesitated. He could see there were beads of condensation on the outside. Ivo looked down and saw a slight vapor escaping from under the door.
"Sheptilah?" He quietly called. "Tilly?"
The door slid open. Inside the room was misty and freezing cold. She turned her head to face him and he saw her eyes were golden and bright. They resembled an oncoming vehicle on the highway, threatening to run him down.
"Your room is different than I remember. Your bed is much larger and your room is more… homey."
He stepped in and shut the door, "I wanted to share my life with someone special. Specifically I wanted to share my life with you, so I tried to make my home more comfortable. I guess I was a fool."
"You are a fool. You've been sharing your life with me since you found me." The smoky vapor started to take the shape of wolves circling the bed. That is when he noticed she was already naked.
She seemed calmer and more in control. What he couldn't see is she had a deathgrip on the mattress; her nails were curved claws that extended two feet into the bed. She shifted her position so that she seemed relaxed.
"I mean in a more domestic sense. Remember when you asked if I shared romantic feelings? I did- I do."
"Then come to me and take what's yours."
"What did you mean by sharing the energy?" He hesitated before making his way to the bed and sat on the edge, taking off his gauntlet.
The witch drew her knees up. "It means that I need my excess energy to go somewhere."
"Will it hurt me?" He took off his jacket and let it fall on the floor.
"Just the opposite." She smiled. She made a noise like she was choking; her energy shifting again. Everything was calm for a moment and she lifted her normal-looking hands from the mattress and sat up.
Eggman paused for a moment before pulling off his shirt revealing the results of his workouts and a chest full of curly hair. He removed his gloves, undid his belt and unzipped his pants. He felt relief now that his stiff cock wasn't trapped in his ridiculously tight clothes.
"Hmm, you look really good," she smirked, "But I think I like you better more rotund. More to hold."
"Really, now?" Ivo snorted. "It sounds like you'd want me no matter how I appear."
"I've wanted to do this with you for a long time, now. Since we were at Stratosphere." She pushed her hair behind her ear and crawled over to him. Proportionately Ivo was a large man so his cock followed suit. It was longer and thicker than what she had last seen, which made her a bit nervous.
"The way you ran your hands down my hips woke something in me. You made me so happy that night. There were other days when I ached for your touch and I desperately wanted to be intimate with you at the worst times."
"Why didn't you say anything? I would've happily obliged." He kicked off his boots. He reached into his nightstand and pulled out a wrapped condom.
"What's that thing?"
"Protection." He put it on.
"Ah." She acted like she understood. "... from what?"
"Diseases and you getting pregnant." Once he was satisfied with its position he took off the rest of his clothes and moved toward her.
"I can't get pregnant by accident." She felt the energy shift again and she winced. "I can control that, and I cannot get sick."
"I will feel better wearing it." He took off his eyeglasses and put them on the nightstand. His evil little heart was racing, threatening to burst out of his chest.
She pushed him onto the bed, his head hitting the pillows with a quiet thump. She then straddled him with his cock in her hand.
"No foreplay?" He pouted.
"There isn't much time- "
He interrupted her. "Promise me something." He swallowed hard. He gripped her hips, admiring how soft they were.
"Yes?" She looked at him expectantly.
"Promise me Shadow won't kick down the door and kill me." He smiled uneasily. The witch's eyebrows were upturned and then she laughed, exposing rows of sharp teeth not unlike the lamprey form she assumed when fighting Katella.
"Can you promise Thunderbolt won't come in and kill me? " She looked over her shoulder and curled her fingers around the air and slowly raised her hand up. Thick, sinewy rose vines crawled up the walls with deadly pricks lining the bark. "Now nobody will bother us. And look." She moved his fingers to her warm, wet pussy. Foreplay was not necessary. "See?"
"I see." He paused, "You're so beautiful." He said breathlessly. His fingertips sent jolts of electricity across her skin as he stroked her hip. His words tore at her in a way she didn't anticipate they could. Three little words but they were able to pierce the toughest emotional armor she had left.
"Ivo," she paused, "It's not too late to say no."
"It's okay, go ahead." He nodded at her, his slightly glowing ember eyes half-lidded.
She positioned his shaft at her pussy and lowered herself onto it, shuddering at the girth and somewhat uncomfortable pleasure therein. "It is larger than anticipated." She huffed as she bucked her hips to get her bearings.
Eggman involuntarily let out a moan as the warmth of her body enveloped him. "You're not a virgin, right? So what is the issue?" He lifted a hand to her breast and ran his thumb across her nipple.
Her hands twitched. "It isn't that. It's been so long since I last… did this …" She lost her train of thought.
"It feels… you're so warm. You're so slick and warm. I don't want to rush; you feel so good around me." His free hand gripped her hip, marvelling at its softness. "I want to take my time."
"It's happening again," she looked at her palms, "The energy is shifting."
Sheptilah put her hand over her Oracle Stone and pulled out a large orb of raw, glowing energy.
"This is where things get weird," she warned. She pressed the energy to his chest and slid her hand across his pecs. The intense rush of magic flooding his body nearly killed him, but due to the healing nature of the power it kept him suspended between both planes of existence.
The energy leveled off after a moment and the overwhelming feeling became intense sexual pleasure with every nerve ending firing off at once. The magic was amplifying all they were both physically feeling at that moment into a strange euphoria.
Two extra pairs of arms came out of her back and held Eggman down.
"Ah, the spider lady has returned," he chuckled nervously, "Think of all the hand jobs you can do like that."
"Shh." She hushed him. Something shifted inside of her and he felt a warmer, almost melting feeling on his cock. Sheptilah arched her back and moaned loudly. He swore he could feel a tongue rolling around his length. More arms rose up from the mattress, stroking and massaging him along his body. Sheptilah's hair started to become prehensile and climb up the walls along the vines.
"Close your eyes," she said between pants, "Close them."
"I want to see you." He moaned.
"Please close your eyes." She begged.
Eggman didn't obey, but he wish he did. Slices appeared along the length of her torso and her rib cage opened like bird wings with a loud, sickening crack, exposing her internal organs.
Eggman screamed. "Sheptilah!" He could see the Oracle Stone branched out and was wrapped around her heart, lungs and liver like tree roots.
"Close your eyes!" She demanded. Some of the hands moved to cover his eyes and hold his head still so he wouldn't see what went along with the loud, sickening cracks he heard.
The rest he could hardly remember- it was too much for mortal men to attempt. Perhaps it was for the best as Orbot and Cubot remember hearing loud moans thinking someone was being tortured. They accessed the security camera from inside the bedroom to make sure their precious boss wasn't being ripped limb-from-limb only to instantly regret what they saw.
He woke up slowly. He tried to sit up but found himself tangled in the ripped bedsheets. Next to him Tilly slept quietly, laying on her side and facing him. He gently brushed her hair out of her face and was relieved to see she was not injured.
When his eyes focused he saw some of the damage to the room. He rolled over and saw there was a mess of used condoms and torn wrappers on the floor along with some down feathers sticking to wet spots.
Regardless of what happened it seemed they were both able to pause the activities long enough for him to put on a fresh condom each time, so he felt a sense of relief knowing that.
He was expecting to be badly hurt but felt no pain. In fact, he felt energized and euphoric. He quietly got up and grabbed a change of clothes and made his way to the bathroom. The shifting of weight caused Sheptilah to roll over with a groan before waking up.
Ivo was in the bathtub recovering from the previous activities for ten minutes before she got up. He pinched the bridge of his nose, trying to remember the entire experience but was coming up empty.
Sheptilah, bleary-eyed and unsteady on her feet, came in soon after and quietly shut the door behind her. He looked over to her and smiled as she got into the water with him. After a moment her vision focused and she was fully awake. The bathroom was remodeled with a generously-sized tub, a new sink and a mirror that was actually a screen with a built-in camera.
"How are you feeling?" He sighed as she laid her back against him. He again brushed the hair out of her face with his fingertips.
"I don't know." She admitted. The hot water felt amazing on her sore body.
"I have to admit that it was… the strangest sex I've ever experienced but certainly not the worst ." He tried to lighten the mood.
"Please don't tell anyone about this.f" She sounded sad. "It has to be a secret."
"Stupid question, but may I ask why?"
"Shadow and Thunderbolt would kill us both," she let a wry smile form on her face, "And so would GUN"
"I can imagine Tower coming down to personally execute me for this." He drew her into a hug.
"But think of the look on Sonic's face if he found out," she giggled, "All contorted with horror."
"I think Orbot and Cubot need therapy, honestly." He leaned forward and chastely kissed her cheek. "I feel fifteen years younger and excited to be alive."
"I feel like I died a week ago." She frowned. "I've never been sore like this before. Too much energy coursing through me at once, I guess."
"Let's not do the lunar eclipse thing again. I still feel the same about you as I did before but I think once per lifetime is more than enough."
"Yeah, I understand." She tilted her head back and looked at him. "I feel stronger about you, though."
"That good, huh?" He smirked.
"Ivo!" She playfully chided him. "I mean the few good things about you. I'm going to hold onto that until the day I die."
"All two things." He laughed.
"I have to confess something," she hesitated.
"You were a virgin?"
"You wish," she shook her head, "Never mind. Don't worry about it." Her voice trailed off.
"Boss?" Orbot broke the quiet by sticking his head into the bathroom. "Are you okay? You've been in the bedroom for three days."
"Three days?" The two humans spoke in unison, then looked at each other.
"Three days!" Orbot held up three red fingers. "You have so many missed calls from a few of your Bosses. I didn't know what to tell them except that you were ...busy."
Cubot poked his face in, pushing Orbot down on the top of his head. "Hey, boss? Your room is a mess."
Sheptilah groaned and ducked her head under the water out of embarrassment.
"How bad is it?" He was afraid to find out. He didn't really look around too much when he came to.
"Did you, by any chance, uh," Orbot searched his data bank and chose his words carefully, "Fight?"
"Did you win?" Cubot asked earnestly.
"Oh, I won." Eggman scratched the back of his head. "Just start repairs on my room right away."
Sheptilah's head breached the water and she gasped for air. "Are you done embarrassing me?" She frowned at the robots. It was one of the few English sentences she could say flawlessly.
"Sorry, miss!" Orbot put up a placating hand. "I'll get started on the repairs." He grabbed Cubot and hustled out.
"Did you win," she mocked, "I can't believe this."
"When your rib cage flew open I was pretty damned sure I was going to die," he laughed, "Oh my God did I think I was going to die."
She inhaled deeply and went back under the water. She could still hear his laughter.
AN: This chapter is specifically released 8/21/17 to coincide with the solar eclipse occurring in the United States on the same day. A once in a lifetime opportunity I couldn't pass up.