Omega took tall and careful strides through the muck of blown-apart Egg Pawns, making every effort to keep his arms at a fine balance. The bat his newly-burned programming identified as Master sat back in the palm of his hand where she could avoid any sullying. Her legs were kicked up and relaxed on his curled fingers.
Shadow had to wade through the corpses though, and he was none too happy about the new divide between the black angel and himself. "I guess I was just her muscle," he muttered to himself, forgotten by the others. His arm hurt badly and he needed to ask Rouge to examine it, but his partner was occupied, laughing frivolously and fawning over her new toy as though they'd been long friends.
"Love your work, Omega! Absolutely marvelous what you've done with those boys!"
"Acknowledged, Mistress." Shadow got the feeling that she could spit on ee-wuntoo-three and he would still return that phrase of loyalty.
"Now, Omega darling, you wouldn't happen to know the way out of this base, would you?"
"Scanning internal maps for the nearest exit! Please wait … …"
Shadow took the opportunity to glide up and speak with Rouge. His forehead was sweating. "Something's wrong with my arm," he panted, wincing as he held up his floppy limb for show.
The bat gave a look down. He had two elbows, it seemed. "It's broken, Shadow," she replied from her hand-held recliner.
"Broken!" he exclaimed. The robots all over the floor were "broken". Was this his end? Would he be maimed forever? "C-can't you fix it?"
His panic amused her. "No, but it'll heal in time. Keep it still for now – you don't want to upset it any more."
"Any more? It's like there's needles shooting in my arm!"
The robot Omega swiveled his head to the side; Shadow returned the glare of his optics. "Mistress," the titan began, "do you wish me to terminate the pursuing unit?" Omega raised his gun-arm to sweeten the offer.
Shadow's instincts took over. "Try it, robot!" he sneered in challenge. The hedgehog dropped back to defensive; Omega activated his laser scope.
Rouge bolted upright. "Whoa, whoa! No! Stand down!" Omega immediately retracted his gun-appendage. Rouge glared at them both and shook her head at the robot. "Omega, Shadow is our friend. And my partner," she added, as though in after-thought. "If he dies, I'm going to be very disappointed with you."
Shadow nodded to himself. So he was more than a business ally to the bat.
Omega extended peace as quickly as he could extend a weapon from his hands. "Confirmed! Shadow-Zero designated friendly unit!"
The wounded hedgehog gave another frown. "Is that my last name? Why does he keep calling me that?"
"Because I'm Number One around here." A playful smirk followed the bat's retort. "Silly. Omega, how's that exit coming?"
"Escape route confirmed," he announced, and gestured to the elevator shaft their walk had brought them before. "We must ascend."
Shadow didn't need any whispering voices to warn him against that. "We can't! Who knows how many robots are up there!"
"Understood. Please wait … … Enemies Targeted!" The E-Series raised his chain-gun arm, and a stubby, red cone popped out of the central screw like bread from a toaster. Omega raised his arm and fired the smart bomb up the elevator shaft. There was a rattle from sub-floor two, followed by some falling robot pieces and concrete.
Rouge shrieked and hugged the robot's arm. "That settles it: you're a keeper!"
"Since we're partners, he'll listen to both of us, right?"
Rouge hummed over his comment with her face scrunched up in the pretense of strenuous effort, but Omega jolted the idea from her head when he placed her on the ground. "Hey, what gives?" she griped to her walking footstool.
"We must proceed to sub-floor one, my Mistress. I will ascend first to secure the perimeter." Omega turned and considered the obtrusive, half-arrived elevator blocking his hulking frame. He pointed his index finger, let the digit snap to the size of a blade, and hacked through the cables in a single stroke. Shadow and Rouge gawked as the elevator disappeared down the black shaft, releasing a clang like distorted church bells. Omega powered up the jet-boosters on his back and flew up the tunnel with various arm-gadgets primed for a fight.
"Ladies first," Shadow said none-too-politely.
Rouge gave a dainty little peek into the duct and glanced around for some sort of rope or uneven surface to climb. "Well," Shadow hemmed. "You fly, don't you?"
"I prefer working with air thermals," she replied, as though she were an educated connoisseur on the subject. "But I suppose you think I suck blood and sleep in a coffin too. I'm a bat," she reiterated. "I glide."
"You can't fly?"
"I can fly!" She sniffed the air and turned up her haughty nose. "I just need a boost first."
"Then get out of my way," he sneered, and hopped into the shaft. Before she could finish her gasp, Shadow hovered back up with yellow jets ignited on the soles of his skates.
"What about me?" she demanded. Shadow shrugged his good arm, kicked his heels and accelerated up the chute.
Rouge made an ugly face and sighed. "Great, just great." She peered at the far wall of the elevator shaft, squinting to check for any ladders. White hoverskates dropped before her face. She jumped.
Shadow the Hedgehog was radiating a dark smile and chuckling quietly. Not a good sign, considering all the pleasures that bettered the sadist's mood – murder, pain, global genocide … "Mortal after all," he nodded, and extended a gloved hand.
"Going up, partner?"
Rouge had made so many mistakes on her part, but Shadow played his role so perfectly – he even reminded her of the responsibility she held in his story. "Gladly, partner."
Shadow clamped his hand over hers, and Rouge wrapped her free hand around his waist, making sure to cling tightly so she could give his bad arm a friendly squeeze.
The top floor of the bunker was clear, but Rouge found Omega with weapons ready anyway. His headpiece swiveled left and right like a mounted security camera, only Omega moved in suspicious jerks, snapping his optics from wall to wall, paranoid that something was sneaking past while he looked away. "Are we clear?" she asked.
Her voice alone made him cease his neurotic behavior. Omega spun around – first head, then torso, then legs – and straightened up with crisp attention. "Sub-floor one: secure for passage!" He declared this proudly, as if it were his dangerous glaring that had scared the empty hall into order. "We must exit the bunker and proceed to the tower."
Shadow hissed sharply as he nursed the pain in his arm. "We're underground?" the amnesic hedgehog asked between gritted teeth. Rouge tuned him out.
"After that?"
"Please wait … … Final Egg generators off-line. All exits locked down. … We must construct an alternate means of escape."
Rouge smiled. "More like deconstruct, if I get your drift." She hoped Omega was installed with maps of the jungle, because she didn't have a clue of where to go once outside. The bat listened carefully for the rest of the mech's plan, but Omega was taking some time to continue his speech – probably processing their next move. So she stood idly for a moment, catching her breath and cracking her knuckles.
"Well?"
Shadow jostled her from that leisure moment. He was watching her, and so was Omega. They were waiting.
Lost and unaware, Rouge just stared back at the pair of newborns. Then she blinked, and her perspective began to shift; it was as though she were growing taller, rising up above even the titan Omega. Rouge gained in height, and the two creatures adjusted their gaze to look up at her. She blinked again, and saw how things really were. Her skin tingled as though filled with a delightful electric power.
"Well, let's not waste any more time, shall we?" Rouge shot her finger at the armored entrance of the bunker. "Move it!"
"At once, Mistress!"
"About time," Shadow said, his loyalty whispered from behind a sneer.
The door was pulled aside, and Rouge bounded up the stairs, two at a time. Shadow followed, hopping up and holding his injured arm and Omega tiptoed at the rear, careful to shimmy his hands up the guide rail. The small steps were not to the advantage of the long-footed mech.
Twelve flights up, they were back at the unimpressive emergency exit, and Rouge yanked it open, relieved to finally leave the dangers of the secret bunker.
They could have been outside already and been none the wiser. The elevator shaft, tall as Final Egg and wide as a sitting room, was filled with the lights and sounds of the Corvalis nightline.
The hum of engines and fans filled the air, as did the many lights of mechanical sentinels. Hoverpods shone a single beam, but these concrete stars came in pairs of piercing blue eyes. It seemed as though they had walked into a dark field lit with the flash of fireflies. Shocked, stunned, eyes gaping with disbelief, Rouge scanned the swarm of glowing orbs, and Shadow and Omega came to her sides and felt the unease of their leader. In the faint light that shone down, the silver tips of lances were like shards of lightning, and the sky was filled with the electric tension.
Omega swung his arms up and opened fire. But his shots only plinked and ricocheted, flicking yellow sparks off the shields held by the front line. The fireflies continued to bob in the air. The E-Series staggered back, as if his ineffectual shots had turned around and wounded himself. Omega was lost.
The slice of lighting peeled through the air, and lances fell to ready.
Shadow's breath was like frost. His head turned slowly, as though moving through molasses, and his unfastened eyes looked for escape. Omega took another languid step back, and the impact shuddered through Rouge's ears, as if the very floor trembled. Shadow moved his mouth, but the hammer of her heart throbbed over every sound. She could see the mad eyes moving for them, crunching the dust under their metal feet, and all Rouge could hear was the thump of her heart, growing slower and weaker with every step.
Shadow's mute face trembled. Omega searched for release. Over the last beats of her life, Rouge opened her mouth, and pushed everything away, exhaling the tension in her chest and blowing it away on the wings of a fresh breeze. She took a breath.
Time slowed no longer. "GET THEM!"
Rouge charged the robots with screams thundering in her wake, and she crashed through their ranks like waves over the rocks. Her feet lashed through the air, slashing the Egg Pawns and beating the hordes away. She was not alone: Shadow leapt through the air like a wildcat. His throat screeched and his burning feet moved with the swift flash of a blade. To her frothing waves, he was black lightning. The air ripped with the cry of an army of deep voices, and Omega rushed into the fray with all the primal might of the mountains at his command.
Rouge could only remember flashes of the chaos that followed. She spun left and right, fighting to keep a perimeter from the mad eyes and the darkness that swarmed her like black ants. She heard Shadow's screams. Sometimes it was the bloodlust; sometimes it was his arm, or a further injury. Heads flew as the black assassin cut through the swarm.
She saw Omega, clutching the tip of a lance in his fist. In the air was an Egg Pawn clinging tenaciously to the hilt, and Omega swung the robot and stick like a mace, cleaving through entire waves of enemies in single strokes.
Rouge remembered hands grabbing at her shoulder. Fast as she could jerk them away, another would tear at her wings and swipe at her ears and yank at her elbow, and for every hand she escaped, two more seized and pulled at her limbs, hoping to tear her apart.
Her steel-laced feet kicked and struck harder the more she was pulled under. She felt air and freedom. A hand made a final swipe at her belt. Rouge felt a jerk, but she pulled away with ease.
She saw the hand fly back with a velvet pouch as its prize. The drawstrings flapped open and jewels rained through the air like droplets of water. Precious crystal and gems sprinkled to the ground. Rouge dropped her jaw and shot out her hand. The world suddenly closed in on all sides – she saw nothing but her spilled treasures, and leapt in a state of total fixation to get them back.
The ignored robots seized and pulled her to the ground, pinning her arms. Rouge fought her binds, empowered by desperation. She did not see the Egg Pawns marching to spear her body until their steel boots came into view behind her littered jewels. The approaching doom made her jerk and rage all the stronger, and she nearly broke free, but one misplaced footstep was enough to swallow her children in darkness and grind them into dust.
Rouge was far away, high on a desert hill, battling among the ruins of sand for her prize, for the beauty and wealth of the Master. In one instant, perfection was seized into the sky. With one swipe of a clawed fist, order exploded into shards of glass, the fragments of her dream whipping through the sky and raining over the barren wasteland. She had screamed then, seeing the destruction of all she held dear, and now, she screamed again.
Omega flew from behind her, hammering the Egg Pawns and knocking back the swarm, but he'd come too late to protect her. Rouge crawled through the oily wreckage in a scatterbrained mess, to the crater of glittering powder. Her fingers brushed through the stardust with slow delicacy – surely one had survived!
The flattened bracelet shed its crushed diamonds like snakeskin. The pearls, the jade, the ruby; all had been pulverized into a rainbow of ash. Rouge sifted around and picked out the gold ring – robbed of its pearl crown and compressed into an ugly band of metal.
She had cleaned them, cared for them, kept them safe from the thieving eyes of the world. They had given her wealth and beauty and everything that was wonderful. Cold darkness surrounded Rouge. Never in her life had she felt so violated.
Around her, the fight raged, but she went ignored, hunched over on the floor and staring into a pool of broken dreams.
Her fingers swept the grit of her treasures into a pile, mimicking the careful collecting of the echidna. She touched her palm to the ruins, but this could not be restored. She had no power over this dust.
Shadow's foot hammered at the face of his fallen opponent. The Egg Pawn had stopped moving some time ago, but he still hacked away until the head dislocated from its joint and oil drizzled from the wound. It can't survive without its head, whispered the voices. The instinctive lesson in combat could be applied to mechanoids as well as organics.
He took no rest from the fight, and crouched low, scanning for the next enemy to pounce. Glaring red eyes took in the mess of robots and the still air. None were left to challenge him. The battle was won.
To his left, the robot Omega took careful precaution (and great delight) ensuring that every last Egg Pawn was non-functional, by jumping up and down and stomping the corpses into scrap metal. The assault mech cheered a slogan of destruction every time he landed. "Eliminate! Decimate! Annihilate! TERMINATE!"
Shadow took a cautious step towards the busy bee, and Omega's free-moving optics flicked up at the hedgehog. His diodes blasted to green, perhaps emoting surprise, because Omega's smashing suddenly lost its bright enthusiasm. "Obliter … Err… Erradi… …" The titan's bouncing died away with his voice, leaving the creaking of his egg pawn springboard to fill the awkward silence.
The mech straightened up quickly. "All enemy units destroyed," he announced with new restraint and professionalism. "Mission complete!"
The black hedgehog searched his companion with a puzzled glare. "Good," he finally grunted, and proceeded to ignore the E-100 unit. While his eyes roved around the battlefield, Shadow's keen ears detected the hollow thunk of a kick, and the muted shout of "Annihilate!" as Omega snuck in a final stomp for good luck.
"Are you damaged?" the mech inquired.
"My arm doesn't hurt anymore." His body had sustained too many fresh wounds for the screams of his broken bone to be of any more interest.
Omega didn't seem convinced, though. "Your wound requires immediate immobilization. Allow me to prepare a sling."
"No. No … thank you," Shadow replied quickly. He wouldn't trust this killing machine. "I can handle it," he rambled. "If I just hold my arm still like this, it feels all right."
"Are you sure you want to quit first-aid?" rang back the automatic double-check.
"Yeah." The worst of it had already clotted with scabs, and he would endure the pain in front of the machine. But where was the vital link of their group? "Rouge!"
Omega's scanners spotted her quite effectively, and Shadow followed his approach to the fallen seraph. Her wings were twisted into crooked shapes, and she was smeared black, as though an oil slick had swept her up and dumped her broken body in the middle of the battlefield. Shadow called her name, and finally shook her body, but the black angel was dead as the robots they'd fought.
"Is she all right?" he checked with Omega. Shadow hated his ignorance, and the dependence on strangers that it thrust upon him.
The robot's optics gave a noisy sweep over the sickly bat, stroking her fingers through a pile of dust. "Subject is suffering severe mental trauma. Please step away: my databanks include a supplement on care for organics."
Omega moved slowly and scooped her into his monstrous arms with surprising gentleness, cradling the bat against his chest like a child. A soothing hum, like the calm blow of the sea rushed out of his voice synthesizer. While Omega's paws stroked her vacant face, Shadow was reminded of the same deep affection Rouge had displayed when she'd caressed the flaming ring on his wrist.
Omega broke his comforting song to address him. "I must transport my Mistress to a safe location where she may heal. Level Forty leads to the docking bays where you may exit the tower." The robot turned to leave the hedgehog to his own escape.
"Farewell, Shadow-Zero. Success on your mission."
Shadow glared at the mention of his alternate name, but more so at the anomaly that had followed. A Mission? He didn't like the familiarity he was addressed with, but Bat and Machine seemed to carry equal knowledge of his secret past. Rouge had mentioned forgotten work that they had shared, but nothing of this nature. Purpose. That title carried all the weight of the world: there was something only he could complete. Shadow looked down on his blood-streaked body, wondering what it could be that he was set apart for.
He thought of the whispers and everything he accepted as instinct, and he grew very afraid. "Wait, Robot!"
Omega stopped and turned his headpiece dutifully. "Standing by."
"I'm coming with you." The white lady was not the only one who would owe him answers.
Omega studied him a while. "Is this your final decision?"
"Absolutely," he replied without hesitation. "She's my partner." He did not yet know what life they had shared as Treasure Hunters, but she had come down to this dark place to find him, so their bond must have been fierce. "I won't leave her," he warned E-123. "She's all I have left."
Omega considered these words in silence. Within his hull, the assault mech was weighing the risks and benefits of consorting with this unit, and pulling up data-tracks concerning his Mistress' attitudes. The sub-objective to safeguard Shadow-Zero clinched everything.
"Are you flight-capable?" he inquired.
"Only for a short while," the organic replied, tapping his heel in the floor and producing a small burst of levitating energy.
"Understood. Please wait. … …" Some estimative number-crunching proceeded. "Additional weight negligible to aerial performance. Please take hold of my frame." Omega bent low so the hedgehog could sling its chassis over his shoulder-pad and take hold of the handle atop the armor. With both passengers secured, E-123 activated his jet boosters and began ascension though the abandoned tower.
The friendly unit was powerful, Omega decided. Yes, it would be a benefit to the safety of his Mistress, all the more so because the unit had forged a protective link towards her, one perhaps equaling his own oath of loyalty.
And just as they held the organic bat in equal esteem, Mistress evidently saw no distinction between Shadow the Hedgehog and E-123 Omega.