This is a fanfiction, and as such, most of the characters in the story are not mine. Most characters are © Sega, and are not used with permission.
Chapter 7: Time is Running Out
Shadow stormed around the basement, with only Omochao to hear his ranting. "What were those things?"
"They are called the 'Chronhorod'. They're a form of time police force."
"A police force? I should sue for police brutality."
"They don't have a complaints department."
"How dare they get in my way! I will teach them a dear lesson."
"Shadow, you can't declare war against the Chronhorod."
Shadow spun on his left foot. "Why not?! I took on a madman and crushed him under my boot. And I will do the same to these 'Chronohorde'!"
"That's 'Chronhorod', and they're not the enemy that you think they are."
Shadow leaned over to look Omochao right in his glass eyes. "Oh no?! And what about you?! Just where do you get off trying to stop me?!"
"It was for your own good."
"My own good?! Do you think they could've hurt me?!"
Omochao shook his head. "No, but you are hurting yourself."
"What?"
"When I said that I would help you, I wasn't kidding; you really do need help, but you need help from yourself. If you continue with these attempts, you will only end up destroying everything."
"What in the blazes are you babbling about?!"
"Haven't you noticed that the house is empty?"
Shadow listened, there was no noise in the rest of the house; also the room they were in was dark.
"They're all gone."
Shadow froze, and looked in awe and shock at his small companion. "What do you mean, 'gone'?"
"They are no more. The latest change you've made to history has wiped both Rouge and Bunnie out of existence; both of them were killed during the war with Robotnik. Tails is alive, but he doesn't hang out around here. You spend all your time alone in this dark house."
Shadow was totally beside himself. {How could this happen? Rouge, Bunnie, gone?}
"Yep, they're no more."
Shadow jumped at the metal one. "We have to do something!"
"And what do you have in mind? It had better not be more time-travel; look at the damage you've done already."
Shadow picked up Omochao and shook him violently. "You can't ditch me now!"
"Alright, alright, just put me down!"
Shadow let go of Omochao, but instead of falling to the ground, he floated in the air.
"So how do we fix this?" Shadow said, almost pleading with the robot.
"We go to the hospital. They've been there all day visiting Sally."
Shadow almost had a heart attack. "WHAT?!!! Why you little..."
"I really think you should be there."
Shadow raced to the hospital with Omochao in tow. High above, Tails was going in the opposite direction.
"Hey Shadow! Wait up!"
Shadow arrived at the hospital and made his way to Sally's room. Omochao had to give him directions because she was in a different room than Shadow remembered.
As he jogged down the last hallway, Rouge came out of one of the doors and noticed him.
"Ah, so you decided to come back after all. I was worried you were going to stay home and sulk all by yourself."
Shadow was a bit flabbergasted by Rouge's declaration and irate tone.
Rouge calmed down and sighed. "I'm sorry, this whole thing has been tough on everybody, especially you."
It was only now that Rouge noticed Omochao. "Who are you?"
Shadow was a bit confused as Rouge already met Omochao, until he realized that this timeline wasn't exactly the same as the last.
"I'm Omochao, and I'm here to help you."
"Cute, but where did..."
Shadow quickly slapped his hand over Rouge's mouth. "Don't ask him where he comes from."
Rouge shook off the hand over her mouth. "Cripes, you're getting weirder everyday."
"How is Sally?"
Rouge shook her head. "Bad, very bad; she fell asleep about an hour ago, but the doctor just told us that she's in a coma. That's why we sent Tails."
"We didn't see Tails, we must've just missed him. Can I go in?"
"Yeah. Geoffrey's in there right now." Rouge sighed very deeply. "They've got her on a respirator, and there's all these tubes in her. They don't think she'll last much longer."
Shadow slowly left Rouge and entered, leaving the bat with Omochao.
"You're a pretty funny looking guy, aren't you."
"And you dress like a cheap whore."
Omochao got a good dent in his head for that; and Rouge almost broke her foot.
Inside, Shadow walked up behind Geoffrey, who was sitting at his princess' side as he did the first time this scene played out.
"We're losing her. For so long, I've fought to protect her from any danger. I saved her from Robotnik's initial invasion, and I've been at her side for years; but against this, I'm useless."
Shadow looked over the wasted form of the princess. She seemed even smaller than before, and her fur seemed a very dirty shade of brown. Several transparent tubes ran to needles embedded in her arms. Her face was shrouded behind a facemask connected to a tank. Underneath it all, it looked like she was so sad, not because of her condition, but because the doctors were trying to prevent what she wanted.
That night, Shadow took a turn to watch over the dying woman.
Never before did he feel so helpless, so lost; even facing Void did not dishearten him as much as the sight of the faltered princess in the bed.
It was almost too painful to look upon the virtually diseased body. Unmoving save for a slight rising and falling of her ribbed chest. Shadow once spent several minutes watching the rising and falling of the probe taped to her chest; it was connected to a box sitting behind him, beeping every second or so, but Shadow paid little attention to it.
While mesmerized by the sickly sight before him, Shadow did not pay attention when the door opened and he was joined by another. It wasn't until the visitor came close before Shadow acknowledged.
"So this is Sally."
Omochao looked down upon the withered form. "Don't take it too hard on yourself, you did a lot to try and help, and were willing to sacrifice everything to help her."
Shadow didn't respond, still looking over Sally's fading body.
"You still don't understand just how much you stood to lose, do you?"
Shadow looked upon the metallic creature with wonder.
"Do you remember what happened so long ago? It was almost a year now, but can you remember what you were like before you joined the Freedom Fighters and defeated Robotnik?"
"I guess I was a bit of a punk back then."
"You were far more than that, do you not remember the words of Void?"
Shadow's eyes sparkled with a frightening glare.
"You were created as a copy of Sonic and warped to the darkness. All of your memories were faked so that you would act like a normal person, except for a deeply hidden hatred for the original. You were to be the instrument of Void's revenge on Sonic, and you were supposed to defeat him. That hatred was supposed to grow and consume you, turning you into a volatile force, bent on humiliating and ultimately destroying him."
"But I'm no longer like that."
"That is only because events have transpired the way they did."
"I have seen that when I have altered the past, I remained unchanged."
"You remain unchanged, but that is because you have done nothing to the past. The Chronhorod have corrected many of the minor faults you have created, for that is their job. They are not evil, they do not try to impede your quest to restore Sonic because they are mean and have some malice against him, but because they understand the ways of chaos; not the 'chaos' you know, but the chaos of time."
Omochao started to float around Shadow's head. "Do you remember what it was that finally convinced you to join Sally and the others in the first place?"
"Yeah, it was Robotnik, after he roboticized Bunnie. I could remember the rage I felt, that was why I joined, and it was that that triggered my Chaos Control."
"That is wrong, it was Sonic's death that did it."
"Excuse me?"
"It is all in the basis of the chaos of time. The slightest change has immeasurable consequences on the future; in this case, it was a very drastic event that had its impact felt in days, not years."
Shadow was getting annoyed by Omochao's descriptions without coming out with a straight answer. "Are you saying that Sonic's death had a direct impact on Bunnie?"
"Yes. In another dimension, a parallel universe to this one, Sonic didn't die, and the events of the last year have been drastically altered. The first change was Bunnie, on the day of Sonic's funeral in this world, events happened much differently in that world. Sonic would find himself at Bunnie's patch, just as she was captured by Robotnik's robots."
"So he was going to save her from being roboticized?"
"Not entirely. He arrived in time to stop them, but by then, Bunnie had already been placed in the roboticizer and the process had started; the result was that the procedure was incomplete, and Bunnie was left as a half-rabbit-half-robot creature. She was very appreciative of Sonic and joined the Freedom Fighters, offering them her newly given strength. Becoming friends with Sonic, made you detest her as well."
Shadow stood silently, he couldn't even contemplate a cyborg Bunnie, let alone that he would hate her.
"It would only get worse. Over time, you would only cause more interference with Sonic and the Freedom Fighters; instead of winning against Robotnik, they were losing. Slowly, their numbers dwindled; many had died or were roboticized. Geoffrey had died in that battle that you had first joined in this world. Sonic had survived and defeated the robots, but there would be no help for him."
"Tails was also captured and roboticized, and Bunnie was fortunate, her death was quick."
"No!"
"That is what happened. Robotnik had finally found Knothole, pointed out to him by Rouge. Bunnie had been fighting against the oncoming hordes some months after that fateful day that Sonic did not die, and was crushed under a tank, first her robotic legs, then her living body; painful, but quick."
"No, it can't be."
"It was over. All resistance to Dr. Robotnik was soon trampled, and the final blow came with Sally's capture; after that, everyone simply surrendered to their fate."
Shadow simply stared at him in shock.
"Rouge had been paid for her services: a load of jewels, and a steel body in place of her soul. Sally was taken prisoner, but she was spared death and roboticization for a worse fate, and now resides in Robotropolis as Queen Sally Robotnik; but she is Queen by name only, and is a slave to him, no more than a trophy of his ultimate victory."
Shadow was left totally lambasted; he could never believe that this would transpire. He looked down at the pitiful creature, unable to even fathom her sitting on a steel throne.
"There is only one hope left, Sonic still lives, and he still runs; but he is now left totally aimless. Everything he knew is gone, Sally is now Robotnik's and there is only one thing left in his life: vengeance against the one who had tormented him far more than Robotnik ever did."
Shadow felt that Omochao was laying it on rather thick, but he knew whom he was talking about.
"This is why I had to stop you."
"There's got to be another way. What you said could not be totally true. There must be an infinite number of permutations of the future, the chaos of time as you put it would dictate that the future can take almost any path."
"Ah, finally you are learning. Surely you are correct; this is but one path that would occur if Sonic had lived, but it is the one closest to the reality that you now exist in, and other possibilities are no less bleak. There was only one good way for all to end. Once you entered the scene, Sonic had to die."
"If I entered the scene? What if I never came?"
"Under most conditions, had you not come to the Great Forest and Sonic had lived, then things would have ended up better than you coming, but not as well as is now. And if you had not come and Sonic had still perished, the future would have been most dark."
Shadow was totally depressed. "Bunnie, Rouge, Geoffrey, Tails… Sally?"
The two of them remained silent for a moment.
"I only wanted to help her, to save her from her grief. She'll only fall deeper at this rate. What can I do if I can't bring Sonic back to her."
"There are still other ways to fix what is wrong. She can still be saved from her despair, and you have all the time in the universe if action is taken fast enough."
"What? What do you mean? What can I do?"
"There may be little you can do, although you have a part to play, if it be nothing more than the quest of Aragorn at the Black Gate."
Shadow recalled the tale he heard long ago, a fable about a group of adventurers that sought to destroy an evil power; and how a king had risen to go to war, for no other reason than to delay the forces of darkness until the deed was done.
"You have the power to travel through time, but you have limits to what you can accomplish, and you will also have to contend with the guardians of time. You cannot defeat them, but you can draw them out."
"Then who is to do the task? You?"
"I can control time, which is why I can safely pass from time to time, space to space; but I cannot go alone, I cannot open the portal to and from, I can only follow. You can take me through the passage of time, to a point where all can be made well; but we will need one more, one who can affect the flow of time, to prevent this despair. You have been trying to change the past while risking your future, but we now need someone who can change their future and save Sally's as well."
"Who?"
"We need someone who is close to Sally, much closer than you, and possibly closer than even Sonic was."
