Author's Notes:
-Thanks to WriteAndRead for the review, it means a lot to me.
-Sorry for the delay with this chapter. I'm not very good at managing my time effectively, so from now on, when I say "updates are every other Friday," what I actually mean is "it'll be ready for when you wake up the next morning."
-Hope you like this chapter anyway, because this one's going to be a doozy!
Chapter Five: Accept No Substitutes
Sonic didn't know what had set off the alarms from earlier, but it looked like whatever it was hadn't stuck around.
"Eh, maybe it was a false alarm," Sonic thought. "Nothing to worry about, I'll just have to tell Silver that. Maybe he knows how to shut these things off."
To be safe, he spent a few minutes darting through the area, scanning the surroundings for anything that looked like a threat. That search turned out fruitless; the only thing that even remotely qualified was a broken bottle Sonic nearly stepped on when hurrying through an alley. Everyone else appeared to have taken heed of the siren and gotten inside, and no Shadow knockoffs came out to attack him, either.
After covering everywhere within a three-block radius of the central alarm three times, Sonic concluded that if there was a threat nearby, he couldn't find it.
"Silver never mentioned anything about invisible threats, and I don't want to waste time chasing after nothing," Sonic mused. "Let's go find him again."
Sonic ran in the direction he'd come from, lifeless air whipping his face as he charged across the cracked pavement, heart pumping and head starting to pound. He was going nowhere near top speed (for not only did Sonic often miss things when he ran that fast, he'd also learned from experience that stepping in a pothole while going several hundred miles an hour was just about the opposite of fun), but "slow" for Sonic and "slow" for just about everyone else weren't even in the same ballpark.
However, after Sonic made a hard right, leaving nothing but a straight shot between him and where Silver had been, the sight unfolding in front of his eyes caused him to hit top speed, his brain doing nothing but screaming, "What have I done?"
Hundreds of the creatures they'd been fighting, at least, filled the street where Silver had been. No sign of Silver, either.
As he approached, Sonic braced for the unthinkable. "Did- did he-"
A scream, warped by the sound of rushing wind, echoed in Sonic's ears, causing him to swing wide of the herd before screeching to a stop. Surprisingly, while a few broke off to charge him, meaning he only had a few seconds to figure out what was going on at most, the vast majority of them remained still, as if awaiting orders.
The noise, now clear, came again. And if Sonic's hearing was even the slightest bit accurate, it was coming from above.
Then, before anyone could react, something big and white came into sight right as it tumbled off the top of a nearby building. It didn't take long for it to flip around, exposing Silver's terrified hazel eyes as he plummeted towards almost-certain doom.
Sonic, knowing now was the time to try something crazy and stupid, jumped as high as he possibly could in some ill-planned attempt to try and catch Silver. He reasoned that if he did that, he might slow down Silver's fall enough to mitigate the damage he suffered when he landed.
That turned out to not work at all. Turns out, trying to catch a hundred-pound object that had fallen from who-knew-how-far while in midair hurt. A lot. And when he hit the ground, he might have been going slower than Silver would have had he not intervened, but the pain upon landing sent such a sharp burst of agony through Sonic's body that he collapsed upon impact anyway, barely managing to break his fall.
Silver groaned in response. "Good, at least he's still alive."
He got Silver off of him before preparing for the inevitable attacks that were to come, but none came. Instead, when Sonic turned to face the mob, he found himself looking directly into the crimson eyes of his biggest rival.
"Shadow?" Sonic tried not to get distracted, considering he was still quite vulnerable here, but with something as impossible as this occurring, that was no easy task. "What are you doing with these things?"
Shadow didn't answer Sonic's question, instead choosing to start monologuing. "I am Shadow the Hedgehog. I don't know who you are, but you are no match for me. Prepare to be exterminated."
Sonic shook his head. "Shadow, buddy, come on. I thought you moved past the 'angsty teen' stage. What's gotten into you?"
Well, one thing Shadow appeared to have lost during the hundred years Sonic skipped was the ability to adequately respond to a conversation, as instead of saying something related or even something unrelated, he instead chose to launch a homing attack directly at Sonic, which he narrowly managed to dodge.
"I guess you're not feeling talkative today," Sonic said after that, darting over to Silver before picking him up like a baby. Without so much as another word, he began a maneuver that most of the time he didn't even consider: a tactical retreat.
The trip, short as it was, didn't treat Silver kindly. Within seconds after starting, Sonic could hear him groaning in pain, causing him to slow down before finally coasting to a stop outside the apartment building Silver had taken him to earlier. Once he set Silver down, though, he gasped, finally understanding the full extent of what had happened to him.
Large chunks of Silver's fur had gone missing, and what was left was so filthy that he was more brown than white. Replacing the fur was nothing but bare skin, which was either burned, blistered, bleeding, or some unholy combination of the three. Silver's formerly white gloves were shredded and covered in blood, and his eyes were leaking silent tears, either from the pain or the trauma of what he'd just been through.
"I'll be back soon," Sonic said. "I've taken care of that faker before, I can do it again."
"I'm sorry, what did you just call me?"
Sonic wasn't too surprised that Shadow had followed them, considering he easily matched Sonic in terms of speed, but Sonic still whirled around upon hearing his voice, again rushing to stand between Shadow and Silver. Shadow's stare bored into him, causing him to cringe although it wasn't terrifying enough to make him freeze. However, Shadow beginning to glow a bloody red did the job just fine, at least for the first few seconds.
"Let me repeat myself," Shadow forced through his snarl. "What. Did. You. Just. Call. Me?"
Sonic tried to downplay his fear, as usual, with some casual banter. "Dude, if you're not going to answer any of my questions, why should I extend that favor to you?"
Shadow's hands both clenched in fists, and he let loose a deep, rumbling growl so vicious it caused the ground to vibrate for a brief second. Then, Shadow's entire body began to glow red as he gained the appearance of perfect concentration. Not wasting a second, Sonic charged Shadow, knowing exactly what was about to happen.
"CHAOS-"
Sonic slammed into him before he could finish speaking, knocking him several dozen feet back and stalling his attack, at least for now. However, now Shadow was somehow more enraged than before (if such a thing was even possible) and while it appeared his inferior knockoffs hadn't inherited all his speed, it probably wouldn't take long before Sonic was drowning in foes. And considering he was already hurting from the punishment he'd been dealt during the first two brawls of the day, if he let them get close to him again chances were he'd be dead.
So, just like usual, all he focused on was speed. Hit Shadow so fast that he wouldn't know where the first attack came from by the time the next one rolled around. Don't ever give him a second to breathe, because the first one will be the last for you.
The first homing attack he launched was a direct hit, but Shadow appeared to have had the same mentality that Sonic did, for not only did it felt like he'd hit a brick wall, he also bounced in an awkward direction, careening around the street like a pinball for a few seconds before coming to a stop, head spinning like crazy. That didn't stop him from trying again, though, which had an identical result as the last time. Despite all that, though, he kept trying, constantly slamming into Shadow and even spouting off a few corny one-liners as he did so in an attempt to alleviate his stress and fear.
BAM. "Jeez, and I thought Knuckles had a hard head."
CRASH. "Next time we do this, I'm wearing a helmet."
CRUNCH. "Hey, are you tired yet?"
The attacks were starting to drain him, and he wasn't sure what was up with Shadow but he looked just as ornery as ever. Things weren't looking good here- if Shadow's near-obliteration of him earlier was any indication, leaving him alone was a bad idea, and his attacks were doing so little that his efforts there were proving fruitless as well.
What was going to happen when he ran out of steam? Or when Shadow's reinforcements arrived? Sonic didn't want to think about that, the repeated barrage from Shadow just barely keeping his mind from venturing to dark places.
Sonic bounced off yet again, preparing for another attempt, but before he did, he noticed Shadow freezing in place for a second before twitching madly, like something inside him was desperately trying to claw its way out. It lasted a few seconds, Sonic staring right at him the whole time, before he shook his head and attacked again.
"I don't know what that was, but I should probably keep doing what I'm doing," Sonic thought. "If I can keep him still long enough, I can knock him down and then get Silver out of here before we get overrun."
Shadow didn't try for a Chaos Blast again, probably because with someone as fast as Sonic, anything that required you to stand still and concentrate for more than a split second was destined to fail. Thus came the second chain of homing attacks and on-the-fly one-liners Sonic churned up (getting worse and worse as he ran out of ideas), not wanting to deviate in any way from the last time.
SMASH. "You think we'd have given up by now."
BANG. "No wonder you attract so many girls like Rouge."
However, Sonic was noticing longer and longer pauses between each attack, and after the last one, Shadow committed himself to another bout of violent twitching. This time, Sonic didn't wait around for him to snap out of it, and smashed another Homing Attack into him. He flew backward about twenty feet or so and collided hard with a crooked streetlight before collapsing to his knees, not getting up.
Even with that, Sonic didn't have long. The horde of clones Shadow had been accompanying was maybe thirty seconds away. He had to put Shadow out of commission and do it now.
It just took a single attack. With a crash, Sonic unleashed one last stupid punch line. "Nice try, Faker."
Shadow gasped loudly once he heard that, shaking his head like crazy even as Sonic moved away. Sonic picked up Silver once more, preparing to retreat a few blocks back to give him some time to rest before the battle recommenced, but before he could start running, Shadow said a single word that changed everything.
"Wait."
Against his better judgement, Sonic obeyed, even as the threat just kept getting closer. Knowing he'd have to book it any second if he wanted to keep either himself or Silver alive, he remained in a position where he could break into a run in an instant, although he stayed still for now.
Shadow pulled himself upright, staring a hole into Sonic as he spoke again. "No one has called me that," he said, "ever since Sonic died. Are you- are you who I think you are?"
"In the flesh," Sonic said, his eyes going wide as saucers as he noticed the mob of enemies was nearby, almost on top of Shadow and maybe a few seconds away from him.
In an instant, Shadow dashed towards them. Sonic, with no time to defend himself, braced for impact.
It never came. Instead, Shadow darted straight past the two of them, yelling, "Then follow me, now!"
Maybe this was a ploy by Shadow, but if it was, he was a far better actor than Sonic had ever given him credit for. Thus, he listened to Shadow once more, darting after Shadow with Silver in his arms, which were starting to ache from holding so much dead weight for so long. Maybe ten blocks or so away from where he started, Shadow came to an instant stop, Sonic following suit right afterward. It didn't give them a lot of time- a minute or so at most- but it was better than what they'd been working with before.
Sonic set Silver down once more to give his arms a break, Silver still not being able to do much more than groan in agony and spit out a few incoherent words. Shadow, however, paid no mind to this, only taking the time to release a very simple message. "I need you to get yourselves as far away as possible."
He darted back towards the group they'd been running from, and Sonic ran away, not knowing what the hell Shadow's plan even was. However, what Shadow shouted next was so loud that it was quite easy to realize what he had in mind.
"CHAOS BLAST!"
For the tiniest frame of time, nothing happened.
Then, a deep, seismic rumble shook the world, launching Sonic off his feet and nearly sending him crashing into the side of a building. Following that came a tremendous blast of pure heat, scalding Sonic's back as he yelped in utter agony. And even with Sonic facing away from the incident, it didn't take much to tell that the area around where Shadow had launched his attack had been surrounded with searing light.
Just as quickly as it started, it stopped. Sonic risked turning around.
Now, Shadow stood alone amidst a sea of corpses, or at least, it looked like Shadow. It wasn't until he rejoined the other two that it became clear he'd survived, not one of his abominable clones.
Sonic had a million questions he would have liked to ask at the time. But before he could get started on any of them, Shadow put a finger to his lips, causing Sonic to quiet down before Shadow spoke once more. "Look, Sonic, I know we didn't exactly start off on the best foot here."
Sonic rolled his eyes. "Oh, really? I always thought the best way to introduce yourself to someone new was to try and kill them."
"You haven't changed a bit," Shadow said. "But I'm going to cut to the chase here. I've got a lot of things I need to get off my chest."
Silver, as weak as he was, attempted to try and interject with a statement of his own. "But… you are… you did… all this..."
"That doesn't matter," Shadow growled, causing Silver to stop talking. "All that matters is what I have to tell you."
Silver and Sonic weren't exactly enraptured, but Shadow's next words stood out to them above everything else, even if that was partially due to the sirens in the background finally, finally shutting off.
"With my help, you'll be able to end all this. Forever."
END OF ARC I
More Author's Notes:
-For organization's sake, I've decided to separate this story into arcs. (No, I didn't name them, I'm too lazy for that. If you'd like, you can come up with your own names for them.) I've planned for four arcs and an epilogue, so I'm expecting this story to be somewhere between twenty-five and thirty chapters long when it's completed.
-Once more, I hope you enjoyed this chapter, and I hope to see you in two weeks for the kickoff of Arc Two!