Believe Chapter 20
A Lie for a Lie
Hey everyone,
So sorry it's been a while, it's been a long, bumpy ride for me. I hope we can all have a better year this year, looks like most places are winding down from restrictions. Hope everyone is doing okay, and as always, thank you thank you thank you so much for your comments and sticking around. It's pretty much your reviews, favs, and follows that keep me motivated and make me smile writing this fic. This fic has changed so much compared to what I originally had in mind for it, so I've been re-piecing back together where I really want this fic to go now and I definitely think it's a more evolved story than what I had originally. Hopefully the writing makes up for lost time!
And I'm so happy to see that readers are enjoying the Rouge and Sonic dynamic. I don't intend to have any ships for this fic, as I want to focus on the friendships between the characters, but there will be plenty of interactions between the Sonic cast that are open to interpretation throughout the story. A big thank you to one of my reviewers who pointed out a setting inconsistency in the early chapters of this fic. It's about to be updated, but for those who want to avoid re-reading, Angel Island is not in the sky but is in fact on ground level with the rest of Mobius, as the Master Emerald is shattered.
This chapter, we've actually reached the middle of the fic (I know right?!) It's so weird finally getting here after all this time! It's a pretty angsty chapter, so get ready! (Amy really goes through it in this one, but I like her character and have big plans for her, so don't worry Amy fans)
Tags/TWs: descriptions of panic attacks and concussions; passing mentions of death, blood and injury (a typical beLIEve chapter basically); Amy needs a hug, Sonic needs a hug, Shadow, basically everyone needs hugs in this
I've already started working on the following chapter to not leave readers on this fairly somber chapter for too long. Just a hint of hope from the chapter title: the end of this chapter is NOT what it seems. And yes, of course, I PROMISE there's a happy ending!
Hope you're all doing well!
"Cream!"
Amy rolled in the dirt as the metallic monster tore its claws across her ear. Blood laced from the metal. Droplets landed on her muzzle and in her eye. Her feet hit the floor as her body tumbled. She used the momentum to spring back up. The robotic Sonic copy was already on her and she barely threw up her hammer to guard against the claw. She muffled a cry as pain lanced up her injured ankle.
"Get Mrs. Owl and Sandy to safety!" Amy got out between gritted teeth.
She could barely see Cream over the metal structure looming over her, the top of the rabbit's ears flattened and shaking. Amy's arms trembled from the strain as the robot steamrolled through her defense. She was pitched backwards, sent flying into the air.
"Miss Amy!' Cream cried.
Amy felt dirt scrape her knees, but she was already getting back up again, "Go now!"
Cream stared at Amy struggle for a moment as the machine launched itself at her again. The rabbit girl's eyes were frozen wide, but she eventually pulled Mrs. Owl to her feet. Amy's feet skidded backwards as the metallic monster gripped the handle of her hammer as she pulled it up to block. The robot drove her back with strength and weight alone. The ground tore beneath her feet. She left tracks as the machine continued to push her backwards.
"Hurry!"
Cream had moved to Sandy and brought her wing around the back of her small shoulders. She hauled her up. With Mrs. Owl, they began to retreat into the town market. Faster than sound, the gleaming robot whirled at their escape. With a deafening hit that made Amy's brain reverberate inside her skull, it punched her squarely in the nose. She rolled again, this time landing into a row of shrubs. Her head spun. The world filled with high pitched noises that made no sense.
"Miss Amy! Amy, we're not going to make it!"
The world came back to her in a jumbled mess and she recognized the screaming and crying.
"Cheese, no!" Cream's voice whimpered.
The robot had switched targets.
"You're hurting him, stop!" her friend pleaded.
Amy jumped back up, barely getting to her feet. She charged in blind. The blurs molded into shapes as blood rushed back into her head. Cheese was on the ground, battered and bruised. The robot loomed over the chao and Cream. Mrs. Owl and Sandy had been pushed behind her as the rabbit spread her arms wide to protect them. Cream was sobbing.
Amy saw red.
Her hammer connected with the side of the monster's head. With a solid thunder that smacked directly into the metallic body, the swing cracked open the earth underneath it. The metal of its face melted underneath her blow. It flew a hundred meters into the remains of Mrs. Owl's house. It passed through the walls like they were made of butter.
Amy wiped her bloody nose with the back of her hand. Without looking to see where it landed, Amy gathered Cheese up into her arms and passed him to Cream, who was still crying softly.
"He's banged up, but we'll make him better," Amy touched Cream's elbow gently.
Cream stared down at her chao companion, frozen. Her shoulders were still shaking with the force of her crying, but no sound continued to come out. Her friend did not respond. Amy didn't know whether to touch Cream again.
"We have to go, Cream. It'll be back," Amy whispered.
At no reply, the hedgehog moved to loop Sandy's wing around her shoulders herself. She began pulling Sandy further towards their original destination, to safety – but where was it safe if you were being chased down by a robot moving faster than the speed of sound?
Amy felt desperation set in as Sandy's weight dragged her down. She heard the distant rumble of the machine pushing slabs of concrete off itself. She checked her side to see if her friend was following, but Cream hadn't moved.
"Cream?"
Mrs. Owl wrapped her wing around Cream's shell-shocked shoulders. "I've got her."
They started running past market stalls and huts, some village stragglers hauling everything they had in some panicked sense of preserving their livelihoods. They tried to avoid being bustled and pushed over, dodging terrified limbs as they ran past. They were slow. The robot would get them. It should already be here by now, guns blazing.
Amy blinked blearily as she continued hauling Sandy's weight. It was playing with them. With her. It hadn't shot at her at the beginning because it knew she wouldn't be fast enough to dodge. They needed to hide or they would all be vaporized when it got serious. But where?
Amy gasped as it dawned on her. "The sinkholes!"
"What?" Mrs. Owl frowned.
"Mrs. Owl, I need you to get everyone to the old house on the top of that hill!"
Mrs. Owl squinted, her head turning from side to side to glimpse at her running neighbors, then the hill Amy was pointing to, "Those old ruins?"
Little did Amy know that the sinkholes that she had accidentally fallen into when looking at the remains of Sonic's house would save them now.
"There's a bunker underneath the ground there, you can access it through the sinkholes!" Amy said.
Mrs. Owl blinked at her for a few moments. With no time to consider, the owl eventually nodded, raising her voice to reach the ears of the straggling villagers, "Everyone! We need to hide; we don't stand a chance on foot! Get to those old ruins at the top of the hill!"
Her powerful voice boomed across the village town entrance, and heads turned. Running stragglers paused, then turned to run for the literal hills. The old badger from the shop ran to worry over Sandy's limp body in Amy's grasp, and offered to carry her. Amy shifted Sandy's wing across the shop owner's shoulders, and she watched the group move quickly away. A house burst into flames not far away, the sound of marching thundering closer and closer towards them.
"Follow Mrs. Owl!" Amy shouted to passing stragglers.
Mrs. Owl had begun running, following after her daughter, pulling Cream with her. The old inn keeper looked like she was dipping into shock. When the owl realized Amy wasn't following, she turned around.
"A-Aren't you leading the way?" Mrs. Owl asked, her yellow eyes looking over the blood that had begun to trickle into Amy's eye.
Amy looked at Cream, who was staring wide eyed at her over Mrs. Owl extended wing wrapped around her shoulders. The pink hedgehog wiped at her forehead, and put on a quick smile. "No. It will beat you there if I don't hammer its face in."
Amy was about to turn away at Mrs. Owl's shaky nod.
"A-Amy!" Cream cried out.
The hedgehog turned around to look at her friend. Cream stumbled towards her, clutching Cheese to her chest. As she got closer, Amy could tell from Cream's blown out pupils she was still dazed from Cheese's injury. Amy smiled softly at Cream and placed a hand on the rabbit's head.
"Cream, go with her," Amy murmured.
The rabbit stared up at her, wide-eyed and slightly frazzled. A small hand reached out to touch the side of Amy's face.
"You're hurt," Cream said.
Amy smiled. "I'm fine."
"You're just like Mr. Sonic."
The hedgehog flinched, surprised. She did not think about the rush of indignance she felt rather than the flattery of being compared to her hero.
"You both pretend you're okay, when you're not. Like you'll lose something if you say you're hurting."
The rabbit pressed something soft firmly against Amy's head wound for a moment.
"Cream…"
"You're also really bad liars," Cream whispered, the faint hint of a smile on her face.
Cream pulled away, a cloth in her hand. The hedgehog blinked when she realized it was Cream's blue neckerchief the rabbit always wore around her dress collar. Amy stared at her, eyes wide as her six-year old friend gazed up at her, wise beyond her years. The rabbit then pocketed the cloth and scampered away back to Mrs. Owl.
"Be safe!"
And without another word, both the owl and rabbit ran towards the old ruins with the rest of the villagers. Amy touched the side of her head, where the bleeding had stopped. She hadn't even realized. She definitely had some kind of concussion.
She watched Mrs. Owl and Cream pelt towards Sonic's old house, the villagers so unaware that the haunted bunker they were taking refuge in was their hero's childhood home. She felt bad for betraying Sonic's privacy like this, but it was the only place safe enough she could think of.
She turned away from the sight as a bullet whizzed past her face. She gasped, diving across one of the broken huts into cover.
"ANNIHILATION IMMINENT. PROCEEDING WITH PURGE OF IRRELEVANT TARGETS."
She watched from her hiding spot as the robot marched into view. She had made a solid dent in it, whatever remained of half of its face falling out in wires in some places. One of its metal quills was partially bent, and she couldn't help but pull a satisfied grin. But the village was roasting flames behind it. Its green optics zeroed in on the retreating villagers. Without thinking, Amy sprang from her cover and swung her hammer down. "Not so fast, you metal freak!"
With a battle cry, she landed a blow that connected solidly with the robot's block. Its arms then shoved, and threw her backwards. She tottered back, head spinning, but didn't fall over.
"PRIORITISING ANNIHILATION OF WEAKER TARGETS BEFORE SEARCHING FOR PRIORITY ONE MAURICE HEDGEHOG," it droned.
It turned away from her, completely ignoring her. From its back, sliding metal opened up to reveal a jet propeller as it readied itself to pursue retreating villagers. Jet propeller. Just like Metal Sonic. But not.
Amy blinked. Sonic. The robot had said Sonic's old name. She watched as it bent its legs to go after the villagers. There was no way she could stop it in time if the machine shot after them.
"I know where Maurice is!" she shouted over the rev of its jet engines.
And just like that, its engines stopped. It fell silent. Then, with one sharp movement, its head whirled in her direction. Its eerily familiar green optics whirred and clicked, sizing her and her hammer up. Its entire body then rotated to follow its head in her direction.
She straightened, feeling pleased with herself despite the impending doom its attention meant for her. She dragged her mallet up to rest on her shoulder.
"Oh, are you finally paying attention to me now, Sonic?" she said cheekily.
"RELEASE THE DETAILS OF HIS LOCATION TO THIS UNIT, OR FACE TERMINATION," it droned, levelling its machine gun arm to her head, rounds locking into place to fire.
"No way! Sonic's mine to find," Amy huffed, clicking on a new button Tails had installed on the side of her hammer on the handle.
The hammer hummed to life and from its head, a green shield projected around Amy with the hundred-and-eighty-degree sphere of an umbrella. She brought it in front of her just as the machine gun clicked and the robot unloaded its entire clip into it. The sound was deafening. The force of the bullets drove the hedgehog backwards a few meters. The sharp ringing took over her ear drums when silence fell over the devastated village once again. No more shots came. None had put too much of dent in her umbrella shield. She thanked Tails and Chaos that her fox friend had decided to give her a weapon upgrade a few months back.
Whip-quick, she deactivated the umbrella shield and slammed her hammer down into the dirt. The earth-shaking blow dragged up a plume of dirt in between her and the assailant. Now with its focus directed solely on her, she ran away. She tried to mute her own steps as she charged off, but her injuries made her clumsy at best. The grime obscured the robots' sensors, but also her own eyes. Amy limped and coughed through the dust screen. She stumbled through the old town market, breath heaving. She looked behind her to see if the machine had registered she'd gotten away, but saw nothing.
Logic suggested based on the only hit she had been able to land on her opponent that the element of surprise would work best for her. She hid behind a couple of ruined stalls. The ringing in her ears had stopped, so she used them detect the enemy and waited with a hand in front of her mouth to muffle her breaths.
But she had forgotten she was up against a robot, not a regular foe. Injury meant very little in how silent a machine could be. A large metallic hand landed on her shoulder. Amy whirled with wide eyes.
"DUST PARTICLES WILL NOT DETER ME. MY HEAT SENSORS HAVE BEEN ABLE TO TRACK YOUR MOVEMENTS THIS ENTIRE TIME."
With a cry, she swung her hammer blindly at it, twisting away from the hand. It barely took a step back before she darted off again. She wasn't eager to get into close quarters with it like the last time. With rampant thoughts, she realized she couldn't overpower it, couldn't outrun it, and was still figuring out if she could outsmart it. The only advantage she had at the moment was that it wasn't attacking her in earnest, and unlike Metal Sonic, it seemed to have an eerily familiar tendency to play with its prey.
"BASED ON SIMILAR PATTERNS IN YOUR RUN CYCLE AND GAIT, THERE IS A HIGH PROBABILITY THAT YOU HAVE A CLOSE RELATIONSHIP WITH THE TARGET. INFLICTING DAMAGE ON YOU WILL CREATE MAXIMUM EMOTIONAL DISTRESS IN THE TARGET."
It was…chatty. It taunted. Amy stared at the blue-black complexion of its raised metal quills as she ran, and it hit her then. "You're…meant to look like Dark Super Sonic. And you fight and talk like him too."
She staggered towards the stone building of the town hall, where the tall poster of a younger Sonic was plastered on one side. She stood cornered against the mural. The dark robot's jet propellers fired up and shot towards her with lightning speed.
Claws extended, its optics zeroed in on her. "INCORRECT. MY LIKENESS RESSEMBLES THAT OF MAURICE HEDHEHOG. MY HARDWARE CONTAINS ALL OF MAURICE HEDGEHOG'S MEMORIES, AND THERE IS NO DATA OF 'SONIC'."
Just as it flew within arms' reach from her, Amy threw herself to the side. It blew a hole in the wall, brick and debris showering her. It tore through the Sonic mural. She scrabbled back up onto her feet, vainly hoping the speed of its crash had done some damage.
Her mind caught up with what it had said, and she felt an icy lump coil in the back of her throat. All of his memories? The story was slowly piecing itself together in Amy's head. Mrs. Owl's terror and recognition of this robot, its likeness to Dark Super Sonic, and its lack of recognition towards the name 'Sonic'. This robot was not a copy of Sonic, but of Maurice. A child abducted by an illegal military organization—a copy of a brainwashed superweapon to flex power over territories like Christmas Island.
Gears began turning at a hundred miles per hour in Amy's brain. This machine was old. And the thought that Maurice had once permanently been in his Dark form because he had been given no other choice irked her. That this had been what he had looked like, where he had been, before their paths had crossed. What his childhood had been like compared to hers, or his lack of it thereof. She wondered nauseously if this side of him could ever be returned, and saw proof she didn't like standing in a mass of stone cold metal before her. And for a brief moment, she wondered if that Dark form he had been forced to stay in for so long was an intrinsic part of him now, that cruelty that had driven him to attack her in Station Square. She quashed the thought as soon as it came, feeling sick it had even crossed her mind. She had promised to stay by Sonic's side back at GUN HQ. But still, she trembled.
"Maurice's—Sonic's memories are his alone. Where did you get that data from? Who sent you? The CUA?" she threw over her shoulder as she continued running. "There's no way the real Maurice would hurt anyone like you are if he had a choice!"
She heard a massive cement slab slide off of his up righted form with a crash. "I WAS DESIGNED TO REPLACE HIM IN ALL OF HIS ASPECTS, INCLUDING HIS BEHAVIOUR AND THOUGHTS. THIS INCLUDES FULL ANALYSIS OF THE PATTERNS OF HIS INFANCY TO PREDICT WHO HE IS TODAY. WE ARE IDENTICAL. AND WE BOTH ENJOY HURTING LOWER ORGANISMS."
Doubt doubled down on her. Doubt that she had tried to banish from her thoughts the moment she had first confronted Dark Super Sonic back in Station Square. She had met a side of her hero that she could not justify, and for all purposes had tried to kill her the moment he saw her. What if he had been holding back this entire time? She had barely been able to get him back, and if it hadn't been for the Master Emerald shard, who was to say he would have come back at all? She had tried to push down the fear that the personality and kindness she loved in Sonic was all a lie. But this new fear was now brought to life in front of her again by some sort of robotic time capsule.
"I don't believe you! Sonic is kind, and always makes sure his friends are safe! You're just some fake copy, just like Metal Sonic," Amy shouted desperately as she charged through a broken home.
But Metal Sonic had been altered to serve Eggman. He did not have a personality, nor a voice. This copy did.
"I WILL PROVE YOU INCORRECT."
Amy whirled as she heard the sound of Mecha Maurice's jets, hearing the gush of wind as metal darted through the air towards her. She pulled her guard up and barely had time to catch the machine flying at her. She soared backwards, back bending with the force of the impact. She smacked into a market stand. She gave a choked cry. The wood splintered and broke at her shoulders.
"EVIDENCE ONE: THIS VERY ISLAND WAS BURNED DOWN BY HIS LAST VISIT."
Despite confirming her suspicions, Amy's shock rang in her ears. She couldn't tell whether it was from her injuries or from the confirmation. Why had Maurice burned his only home to the ground? If it had all of Sonic's memories, did it know all of his reasonings for his actions too? In all her time with him, she had never known Sonic to hurt those that had hurt him. Amy's head spun.
"TWO: THE CUA PROGRAMMED THIS UNIT TO BE ACTIVATED BY HIS NEGATIVE ENERGY. A VERY SELFISH CHARACTERISTIC FROM A FRIEND YOU BLINDLY CLAIM TO TRUST."
It confirmed her suspicions this was a CUA Maurice replica. But what was this robot programmed to do now and why was it after Sonic?
"THREE: YOU DO NOT APPEAR TO BE AWARE OF ANY OF HIS UPBRINGING. KEEPING SECRETS DOES NOT INSPIRE TRUST IN ORGANIC LIFEFORMS. EMPHASIS: YOU DO NOT KNOW THIS UNIT YOU ARE UP AGAINST, DECREASING YOUR CHANCES OF SURVIVAL BY 54%."
Amy blearily tried to sort through the rational side of her brain whilst her love for Sonic fought so violently against the frigid cold in her stomach. Could she trust Sonic if he couldn't even be honest with her? Why had he been lying to her, his friends, after knowing them all these years? Had he known about this robot, waiting and lurking in the shadows for them? Were they all unknowingly still in danger from the CUA?
"FOUR: FATE ITSELF WILL HAVE SONIC DESTROY THE WORLD. THE CHAOS PROPHECY HAS NEVER BEEN WRONG BEFORE. ALL SHALL COME TO PASS."
Her mind was still whirling, heart thumping erratically. Sonic, destroy the world? A prophecy? No, She shook her head. No. Sonic had been accused of ending the world before. Silver had been wrong about Sonic being the Iblis Trigger, and Amy had stood on Sonic's side back in Soleanna. Sonic had helped save the world then. Her faith had been unshakable then. What was so different now? No matter how many opponents threw world destroyer in Sonic's name in hopes that it stuck, Amy saw no correlation in the amount of times history had pointed to Sonic multiple times. There was no relation. There wasn't.
She staggered from her fallen position, ignoring the splinters sinking into her skin. Her back pressed into the bridge rampart behind the shattered stall. The mech stood directly in front of her, and Amy knew it would be fast enough to catch her before she could make it down the main plaza. Blinded by the whirling dirt her crash had kicked up, she was well and truly cornered. She stared frozen at the concealed shape of her attacker, unable to place her terror in the moment or in the Sonic that was in her thoughts.
The mecha's claws raised for a blow, its green optics glinting as if in delight. "FIVE—"
A band of blue arched into the air, a spindash smashing into the robot from the side. The machine crashed backwards into a second plume of dust in the opposite stall. Amy stared as a familiar shape uncurled from its ball of spines, revealing its raised quills. Eyes wide, she fumbled for her hammer – she hadn't known there were two mechas. But as the dirt cleared, she recognized the shape was very much organic.
"Aw, it's great you know how to count," none other than Sonic himself stepped in between them, his back to her.
At the sight of him, Amy felt her heart sink as she did not tackle him into a loving hug. She just sat there. Her head was still spinning. Amy felt dazed as she stared at the dark midnight blue quills sitting on her hero's back. She stayed quiet as Sonic didn't turn around to face her.
Green optics glowed in the swirl of dirt Sonic had sent his copy plowing into. The machine whirred and clicked as it stood back up.
"PRIORITY ONE: MAURICE HEDGEHOG MATCH….CONFIRMED."
The dust cleared and slowly revealed Mecha Maurice. Amy vaguely saw Sonic's muscles stiffen, and the profile of his face slacken in shock. He must not have caught sight of his opponent on the way in. Amy blinked, wondering if she was imagining the tremor in Sonic's hands. His raised quills darkened an even darker shade of blue.
"Who—" the hero's voice came out thready, haunted, "What the hell are you?"
Shadow stared after the swaying trees Sonic had left behind, his usual blue streak long gone. Shadow waited, like he expected Sonic to return and tease him for not giving the hero a proper race. An uncomfortable curling sensation had begun to form at the pit of Shadow's stomach, but he could not even begin to fathom what it was. His mind felt like it was in stasis, barely processing what had just transpired.
It was Rouge's long-suffering sigh behind him that pulled him out of his trance. His head turned to stare at his partner. She had sat down on an old burnt tree stump amidst the brown fir needles covering the forest floor, the emerald bag slouching beside her. Her body was slightly turned away from him, like she was almost in a trance of her own and hadn't noticed he was there. He shifted, and her ears swiveled instinctively. His teammate was in fact very much alert of his movements. Shadow recognized that this was actually the pose she adopted when she was upset with him.
She typically announced it to him, but not this time. He wavered uncertainly between waiting for her to speak or charging towards the source of the explosion before Sonic made things worse.
"I'll go evacuate the residents of the island," Shadow swallowed eventually.
"No, I think you've done enough," Rouge said, not looking at him.
Shadow blinked, before his lip curled over his teeth. His fists tightened, and she didn't have to turn to know he was angry.
"Don't give me that scary look," she said. "After the way you've spoken to me these last few days, I should be glaring at you."
Her back was fully turned away from him now, completely exposed, entirely confident that Shadow would never attack her. The hedgehog's furious eyes raked over her left wing, some scratches and bruising left from the Eggnihilator battle several days ago. After Dark Super Sonic's attack on Station Square, she had reluctantly let him heal the fracture, but she had insisted to leave some bruising so they wouldn't have to report to GUN HQ right away.
The present silence gave some time for her words to sink in. The curling in his stomach returned.
"I was trying to make sure you and Omega were safe," his words came out rougher than he meant them to.
She was nodding to herself, like it had confirmed her suspicions over the reasoning behind his actions.
"Part of protecting people is giving them the choice," Rouge snapped. "You never asked me. Your partner. You never asked me if…if killing Sonic was what I wanted. If going back to GUN was what I wanted."
Shadow's mouth broke open to protest, but Rouge spoke over him, "You kept me in the dark so I wouldn't have to make the decision, I get it. But that's the problem, I couldn't make a decision because I didn't know what was going on. I didn't even know that I was in danger. You made me helpless."
Shadow's stance slowly dropped as Rouge finally turned to look at him, her eyes filled hurt, "What's the point of a teammate if I can't depend on you?"
All rebukes left the ultimate lifeform's thoughts. He felt any remnants of his anger crawl away, replaced with the curdling guilt that had taken a deep seat in his gut. It encroached fully onto him then. He himself had struggled so hard to find out the truth about his past for so long, wanting to know all of the details to make the most informed decisions. Villains had used the absence of truth to deceive him. It had driven him almost mad, and while Rouge and Sonic had accompanied him on his search for answers back then, he had just actively lied to them for a means to an end.
Rouge seemed to take a breath to wrap up some of the hurt in her voice, "I know that… it's been difficult for you, feeling emotions with some memories still missing, but other people care enough about you that when you take their choice from them, it hurts their feelings."
The ultimate lifeform flinched. He didn't need to be reminded. Just when he believed he had remembered everything, there were still some flashes that came back to him every once in a while. The GUN neurologist had said recovery was rarely linear.
Sonic's glaring face flashed in his mind.
"Why…Why was he angry?" Shadow asked, shaking his head.
"Because you betrayed him, Shadow," Rouge scoffed.
"I was preventing him from doing something foolish," the hedgehog growled. "I was trying to make amends for my actions. He can barely walk, and the last time he was on his own he almost killed his friends. I was—"
"Trying to protect him. Yeah," Rouge huffed, but despite her firm tone, her eyes softened at him. "I know, Shadow. But you betrayed his trust when you tried to kill him. People who do that don't get to have someone's back again. At least not for a while."
"I don't need people's trust or to think about people's feelings. If they are under my protection, is that not enough?" Shadow snarled.
"For strangers, sure. But for your friends, it's different. Would you trust some stranger to have your back in battle, or me?"
"You."
"Then there you go. You expect me to have your back, so if I was withholding information from you, it would hurt more than if it was a stranger."
"But Omega, I had to—"
"Then we figure out what to do, together. Just because you and I might be closer, you can't prioritize a friend's life over another. That's crazy GUN thinking, Shadow."
Shadow reeled with the comparison to GUN. He was acting like a GUN trigger-happy soldier? His first instinct was to chaos blast the forest and demand Rouge to watch her words very carefully, it made him so angry. But after the past few days replayed in his head over and over, he saw that what she had said was true. A visceral feeling rose in his throat like bile. He swallowed.
Rouge continued, "Dark Super Sonic or not, Sonic is still a person. He can be hurt, but it's also important for him to have the freedom to make his own choices. Just like we respected your decisions when you weren't entirely in your complete mind, you need respect his. Even if they're not the right ones."
"If it hadn't been for him lying to all of us first, we wouldn't be here," Shadow argued, feeling a bit like a petulant child.
"Oh, does being left out of the loop by a friend make you feel distressed?" Rouge commented sarcastically, and Shadow felt shame at the hypocrisy she had pointed out.
"…Sonic's not my friend," was all Shadow managed to say, but the repeated mantra sounded weak even in his own denial.
Her lids dropped lower over her eyes, implying with just a look, then why do you look so guilty? Shadow crossed his arms and huffed, looking away.
"Sonic recognized that not telling his friends about his past was putting them in danger. He was hellbent on getting past you because he wanted to fix that mistake," Rouge sighed.
And Shadow had been preventing him from doing that. The dark hedgehog felt himself empty as he replayed the fight in his head. Sonic had been so desperate. Shadow's shoulders slumped and the fight left him altogether. Rouge's and his eyes met, and Shadow finally saw the haggard expression on his friend's face, how hard Rouge had tried to keep everyone together when Shadow had done nothing but tear things apart. They were both tired, tired because they had been fighting so hard to keep Sonic and their friends safe, but pulling each other into opposite directions.
He stared at Rouge's sagging shoulders. She had turned away from him at some point during his silence. Her wings were slightly drooping, the left slightly askew but mostly recovered. It was in moments like these that Shadow felt privileged in being one of the very few who she shared vulnerability with. He marveled at her strength to show weakness. Doing so gracefully what he could not.
Shadow moved towards her, standing close to the stump she sat on. He faced the opposite direction from her and sat down—exposing his back to her, too. His sharp quills relaxed to feel as soft as fur against her wings.
"I'm… I'm sorry," Shadow said.
His partner sat in silence. The quiet stretched, Shadow's stomach stirring uncomfortably at the thought that Rouge might be too angry at him this time. That it might have been the last straw with Sonic, too. Rouge was right. Shadow had decided what was best for them without asking. Was he just be repeating history? Had he dealt the same injustices he had experienced himself onto his friends? Why shouldn't he let Sonic have the freedom to make his own mistakes? Shadow stared down at his balled fists.
Rouge eventually shifted, pulling him out of his thoughts. He felt her weight eventually push back against him, pressing softly but firmly.
She sighed, "Just don't do it again, Sunshine."
The familiar teasing moniker that used to annoy him wrapped relief around him like a warm blanket. He let out a breath, and his shoulders relaxed.
"I won't," he promised.
Rouge slowly stood. "Ok. Good. Now that the story's straight, let's go make sure we help our friends. Properly this time."
Shadow felt like he was back on the ARK and Maria was scolding him for running too fast in the hallways again. Suppressing a small smile, he stood up too. He shifted, then finally turned to face her. "And Omega?"
"We'll come back for him. For now, GUN don't know you've failed. I'll figure something out before they do."
Shadow nodded, "Let's get going."
Rouge spread her wings and dashed forwards into the air, Shadow matching her pace right behind her.
"Sonic doesn't want my help," Shadow stated as he skated forwards.
His friend's wings flapped, then spread into a long glide next to him. Her eyes stayed looking ahead.
"You need to find a way to show him that you care," she replied. "I've never seen him that upset at a friend."
Shadow thought about how he had tried to reassure Sonic like Rouge would, and how Sonic had caught him on it instantly.
Shadow gritted his teeth. "I'm not…I can't be like—"
"I know you're not Sonic. Or me. I'm not saying to be dishonest. There's something only you can do for him. It has to really come from you, or he'll be able to tell."
Something only he can do… Shadow frowned, pushing more energy into his rocket skates as he jumped over a boulder. When he had first seen Dark Super Sonic, he had thought he might come to understand the blue blur.
"I don't understand him at all," Shadow growled. "How can he pretend everything is great when he talks about such terrible things? It…angers me."
Rouge seemed to nod imperceptibly in the breeze.
"Is that what makes you so upset when he gets worse?"
"…No," Shadow muttered.
The hedgehog looked ahead at the glittering sun above the tree line and the plume of smoke where the unknown object had plummeted into the island. He hesitated as the next words fit against the back of his teeth, struggling to voice them. Rouge flew silently beside him as she waited for him to gather his words.
"Maria, she…when she was unwell… She would have seizures."
Rouge's wings flapped more lightly in the wind to hear him, her expression as solemn as ever when on the rare occasion he ever spoke of his only friend aboard the ARK.
"Because I was created to help with her disease, I was the only one allowed inside with her while she recovered to avoid any further complications to her health."
Shadow's skates burned and fizzed with his emotions.
"It didn't matter how long I stayed by her side. I was supposed to be her cure, but as it turned out, I was only useful as a weapon."
"Oh, Shadow," Rouge looked sad.
"I can't help Sonic heal," Shadow avoided her eyes. "But I can make sure no one gets close to him without losing an eye."
"You're more than a weapon Shadow," Rouge said softly. "And I think you helped Maria a lot just by being there."
Shadow pursed his lips, a self-loathing frown on his face. He shrugged mid-run. He gave an unconvinced nod.
"It must bring back a lot of unpleasant memories seeing Sonic like this," Rouge said. "I didn't realise."
Shadow skated silently for a while.
"He's going to die," he avoided replying directly. "His body hasn't been absorbing any chaos energy even though he said coming here would help."
"You're able to see that right?" Rouge said, "With your chaos abilities."
"Yes."
"Is there any way you can find out what's wrong with his energy and see how we can help restore it?"
"It's not…it's not just him," Shadow murmured. "I can't absorb any chaos energy either."
Rouge stared at him. "What?"
"Mobians naturally absorb chaos micro-particles in everything around them, but for those with higher chaos-gifted abilities like Sonic and I, we require more chaos energy than others to sustain ourselves," Shadow said. "At first, Sonic and I thought it was because Dark Super Sonic had drained all the energy from the chaos emeralds. But it's more than that. This island, it's like there's nothing here at all. I feel more…tired than I should be."
When Shadow had first heard Sonic ask them to bring him to his childhood home, he had imagined Sonic's birthplace would be a place rich with chaos energy, especially after housing the emeralds for so long during the time Sonic's parents had hid them here. But the air was arid and unfriendly – neither better nor worse than the miasma back in Station Square, just a nothing for Shadow to draw energy from.
Rouge looked at him with concerned eyes, "Will you end up like Sonic?"
"My chaos energy reserve still has some power left for a few more fights. My inhibitor rings regulate my energy so there's no pointless waste."
"What is going on," Rouge sighed, shaking her head, but Shadow could tell she was relieved by his answer.
Shadow tried to pick up the pace, with a quick nod to his mission partner to accelerate.
"There's something strange about this island," Shadow frowned. "But I can't sense what it is."
"Something else has been bothering me, too," Rouge said.
Shadow quickly glanced at her.
"Sonic's nearly turned into Dark Super Sonic multiple times, but he hasn't," his partner bit her lip nervously.
"Isn't that a good thing?"
"Yeah, but it's like the supposed effects of this island are working, but the good parts of Sonic aren't getting their strength back. Which means none of Sonic is recovering, not even Dark Super Sonic. It's like even he doesn't have the strength to take over," Rouge murmured.
Shadow blinked, Rouge's words sinking in.
"One thing's for sure," Shadow said grimly, "Whoever told Sonic this was a purifying island had a different definition of 'purifying'."
Both their minds went to Sonic's mother, the person Sonic had told them had said this island would help him. Rouge took in a sharp intake of breath. Shadow whipped around to look at her.
"Knuckles said something, a while back. I thought he was just babbling about his old Clan but… it was believed that the chaos emeralds and any who used their power were chaotic, illogical creatures. Evil. If Sonic's parents were hiding the emeralds, believing that…"
Shadow felt the cold grip of realization climb in. He understood why he and Sonic felt more tired. Why he felt the pull from the arid environment on his locked in chaos reserves. Like the island was literally leeching energy off of him. Suppressing it.
His mouth went dry, "Rouge… We have to get Sonic off the island."
Wrong. Instead of looking for all of the familiar things in Sonic that made Amy feel safe, she found she could only pay attention to what now made him different. Dangerous.
Sonic stood stock still in front of her, his posture rigid. Amy's eyes travelled up his back of angry dark quills. Then back down to where his fists shook, one closed around Mecha Maurice's disconnected arm. Ripped wires at the shoulder joint fizzed, sparks drifting into the air like flashing warning signs. She shivered, realizing Sonic had torn it off in his attack.
Amy was silent. If she moved, would he hear her? Would he focus his attention elsewhere? Which one of them, friend or robot, was the priority for Dark Super Sonic? Who was in control now?
"Well, I was going to ask if you needed a hand," Sonic snarked without turning around, waving the robot's arm at his joke.
Wrong. His joke hit wrong, a dissonant off-key, grating against her ears. Amy stayed in frozen quiet. Wrong, wrong, wrong. Everything felt wrong. Amy's head buzzed. The chill ran deep in her bones. She shook her head, trying to clear Mecha Maurice's words from her head. This was Sonic, the hedgehog she was destined to be with. Was she really about to believe an evil robot over Sonic?
"Amy? Where's Cream and Cheese? Is everyone else okay?" the snark had vanished from his voice.
Amy blinked. Sonic was here. When had he turned around? When had he gotten so close? His voice came uneven in the din of her mind, coming and going. She shook her head again. No. What if Dark Super Sonic was trying to trick her again, like he had in Station Square, with Sonic's voice?
"Amy?" Sonic asked again, had already been calling her name over the static screeching in her ears. "Amy…! Your head…!"
She flinched as she felt him touch her elbows. Sonic released her immediately, vivid green eyes flashing with something strange. It was getting harder to focus on the bigger picture, just small things.
"It's me…! It's really me! I'm so sorry," his tone sounded…worried. "I didn't mean to scare ya."
She realized she'd fallen back down from where he'd pulled her up on her feet, her back pressing as far as it would go into the rubble.
"SHOWING EMPATHY. AN UNEXPECTED EVOLUTION FOR A WEAPON PROGRAMMED TO MAIM AND KILL. BUT ONE CANNOT ESCAPE THEIR TRUE NATURE," Mecha Maurice's voice shudders through Amy over the dust. "ALLOW ME TO REMIND YOU."
She heard Sonic gasp, "Hey—"
The sound of the machine gun unloading its clip filled Amy's ears. Wind blew through her frame and her teeth chattered, her head whirled. Dark Super Sonic had snatched her up and zipped away. When Amy's brain caught up with her body, she was already kicking and crying.
"I'm really sorry…!" Sonic's voice came muzzily through the slush in Amy's mind.
She fought against the limbs holding her, but her arms and legs were made of jelly.
"I'll put you down as soon as I can!" his tone filtered in over the sounds of a sonic boom coming after them. "I'm sorry, I know I look like… Please… Please don't fight me, it's not safe!"
She remembered distantly that he was right, it wasn't safe, and fought harder. Her head buzzed with so many sounds, she didn't know whether they were coming from her ragged breathing or the sounds of the jet tearing after them.
She watched numbly as more strings of apologies fell from Sonic's mouth, the unfamiliarity of his tone ringing strangely in her. Something was very, very wrong, judging by his expression, tense and sad. Her vision blurred.
"Your head…!" Sonic was saying again, low and frantic as he ran. "You must have a concussion, or, or… Tails would know, he'd be able to help you, and…!"
Tails wasn't here. She'd forgotten why. Another round of bullets rang in her ears, her world darting past a line of thick trees.
"I can give you my energy," Sonic's chest was heaving with the effort of outpacing their enemy, which was strange – Sonic never got tired unless he was up against a rival or already injured.
"It's not much, but it can help heal your concussion," he went on, weaving behind a few fir trees as Mecha Maurice lost speed behind them. "Gotta filter out my negative energy. I won't give it to you, I promise."
Amy squirmed, he was making no sense. What was happening?
"I'm sorry, please don't be scared."
She felt something thrum into her veins, slow and gentle like the sun on a calm beach day.
"You're safe."
Amy hadn't realized she'd closed her eyes, but when some clarity started returning to her head, her eyes opened to the sight of golden fur. She blinked, and it was gone. With her newfound lucidity, she raised her head slowly from where it had been slumped against Sonic's shoulder. She stared at his blue quills dragging in the wind as he sped through the forest, far from Eastside Village. She met his gaze and saw relief shimmer in his eyes, and he shot her a tired smile.
"Hey, Ames! Welcome back," he grinned.
The dark circles under his eyes had gotten even deeper than since they left GUN HQ. His left cheek was smudged with the beginning of a bruise. He looked terrible. Amy stilled. "Sonic? Are you—"
A ray gun fired just beside them—Sonic cried out as it grazed his shoulder.
"Sonic!" Amy screamed.
Sonic lost his footing. They rolled and crashed. Sonic curled into a tight ball over her, every bump against the undergrowth dampened by his quills. They stopped violently when Sonic's back hit a tree. Amy's head spun, but she felt nowhere near as disoriented as before. Her focus turned to Sonic, where his head was bent, his arms and shoulders hunched forwards to avoid pressing the injuries on his back against the bark again. His throat wheezed rapid, panicked flickie-bird breaths.
"Sonic!" Amy gasped again, hands raising to lift his chin.
"Stay away," Sonic choked out.
She flinched backwards like she'd been burned at the change in his voice. Terror like before flooded her senses. A loud sound of jets and metal landed next to them, and she whirled, stuck between Mecha Maurice and some weakened Dark Sonic. The emeralds must be too far away. She scrambled backwards. She fell over behind some lump of ferns, hand over her mouth. Scrambling back up again, eyes wide and heart pumping, she dragged herself out of the way of crossfire as both opponents glared at each other. Sonic hadn't moved from his fall, but his spines were raised again, his acid green eyes dark and dangerous.
"Don't come near," Dark Sonic said again.
Why wasn't he getting up? Amy hid in the ferns, trying to grab onto the niggling in the back of her mind that Dark Sonic's defensive words were strange. He'd said those words when she'd first talked to him in front of the Egg-nnihilator.
"GIVE ME YOUR ENERGY. I CAN PROTECT YOU," the machine took at step.
Amy couldn't believe her ears. Mecha Maurice was extending…help? What was happening?
Dark Sonic recoiled, "I don't have anything left."
Sharp. Defensive. Scared? This wasn't the same Dark form she'd confronted in Station Square. I don't have anything left. Had the island not been replenishing his energy? Another thought struck Amy, as to why her concussion had mysteriously disappeared. Sonic must have given whatever he had left to her. And left himself and Dark Sonic powerless. Because of her. Her eyes welled up.
"GIVE INTO YOUR NATURE. YOU ARE NATURALLY SELFISH. THAT IS YOUR PURPOSE. THAT IS THE PROPHECY."
"I said, don't come near," Dark Sonic snarled. "You. You're that metal suit they made me wear. That suit drained me of everything I had. You're just that chaos compressor with the wires filled in."
Amy's blood turned to ice. That suit drained me of everything I had. It fit in with all the puzzle pieces in her head: it was some kind of suit Maurice had been forced to wear, something that had terrorized the island, now made into a self-functioning, lethal robot with all of Maurice's stolen memories. It sounded horrible. She'd been seeing Sonic and Dark Super Sonic as two different people all this time. But the pain shivering across Dark Sonic's face was unmistakable. Sonic had worn that face when he'd been the Werehog, something he had been forced to become. Something screamed at Amy in her head, but it slipped away before she could fully grasp the thought.
"CHAOS ENERGY IS UNTAMABLE, EVEN FOR THE CHOSEN CHAOS CONTROLLER. THE CUA PROVIDES PURPOSE. CHAOS ENERGY IS BEST USED AS A TOOL," Mecha Maurice's clawed hand reached over to touch Dark Sonic's shoulder. Dark Sonic was powerless. Amy felt sick.
"Sonic!" Amy burst out of the greenery and slammed the robot's hand down on the ground under her mallet.
The arm fizzed as it was crushed. Mecha Maurice darted backwards with the mangled metal limb. Amy went for another swing but missed him completely the second time.
"Back off, buster!" she yelled. "No one touches my Sonic!"
The machine's eyes swiveled towards her as it drew back.
"I SEE YOU STILL NEED CONVINCING."
"Amy, don't!" Sonic's normal voice sounded frantic at her back.
She didn't even know what Sonic didn't want her to do.
"I WILL TELL YOU THE TRUTH WITH THE REAL MAURICE HEDGEHOG AS WITNESS. THE TRUTH ABOUT WHAT HE DOES TO THOSE HE LOVES."
"No, don't!" she heard Sonic lurch forward, unable to stand up.
Amy stood stock-still, everything happening too fast for any thought to cross her mind.
"YOUR BELOVED HERO TOOK TO THE DESTRUCTION OF ALL ROBOTIC AND ORGANIC LIFE ALIKE TO SAVE HIS BELOVED MOTHER ALEENA HEDGEHOG."
Aleena Hedgehog, Sonic's mother, whom Amy had read about and admired in Aleena's diary. The amazing adventures and tales Aleena had lived through before Sonic had been born.
"No, don't, please!"Amy's ears rang with Sonic's plea.
"WHEN HE WAS FINALLY GIVEN THE OPPORTUNITY TO SAVE HER," Mecha Maurice crooned, "HE KILLED HER."
Amy's ears were ringing. Her hammer thudded against the ground. Her breath shuttered in short rasps. She tittered backwards.
"It's not true," she gasped like her insides were being scooped out and left to dry on the floor.
The words fell from her mouth without permission. She stared at Sonic. Miserable, frantic green eyes stared back at her. He stood before her like a stone.
"It is," Sonic said, voice ancient and manic, "I… It's all my fault."
Something snapped inside of her. A sob tore from her throat. She whipped back the way they had come. Amy ran, and she didn't look back.