Disclaimer: Sonic the Hedgehog is © Sonic Team / Ashura the Hedgehog, Akuma & Sakana Uni are © me
5: Akuma Incarnate
"All right, you. For now, just sit on the couch," Sonic said to Ashura as they entered the penthouse. "Wait, don't! Do not sit on my couch with your dirty self." Ashura frowned at him. "Just sit on the floor, all right?" Still frowning, Ashura sat where he was. Did he do something to make Sonic mad? Well, after the way he had acted, he couldn't blame the little guy for being mad at him.
Sonic threw himself down on a recliner and sighed loudly. "What a day."
After a period of silence, he stood up and wandered to the window overlooking the coast. He sighed again. I don't suppose they've found Tails yet. They're probably not even looking for him anymore, now that this other guy is loose.
"I'm sorry about your friend," Ashura spoke up timidly. "I hope he's all right."
"Thanks," Sonic muttered. More silence. Then, "You are lucky to have a friend," Ashura said.
"Why?"
"I don't have any."
"I see."
Silence. Sonic continued to stare out the window. Ashura began to nod off again.
A sudden peal of thunder jolted him to his feet. Sonic smirked. "Scared of storms? You'd think living outdoors would cure that." But Ashura no longer viewed storms in the same way. As lighting flashed, he squeezed his eyes shut and clamped his hands over his ears. Sonic shook his head. "What a moron." As soon as the words left his mouth, he felt awful about them. But it was too late to take them back, so he ignored the remorse. He turned back to the window to watch the spectacle.
"Wow." The sky was weighed down with billowing, bluish-gray storm clouds that stretched as far as Sonic could see. Out over the ocean, lightning skipped and flashed across the bottom of the clouds. Now, how the Hell could such a storm come on so fast? "That doesn't look good," Sonic said, drawing the curtains shut. "Thank you," Ashura said quietly. Sonic didn't reply.
The room would have once again lapsed into silence, if it weren't for the oncoming storm. Sonic flopped onto the couch and turned on his TV. Ashura let out a little gasp. There . . . there were tiny people in that box! They were moving . . . and talking! Oh, what was this marvelous item? Unable to contain his curiosity, Ashura moved carefully on all fours towards the television. Sonic watched him with raised eyebrows. The guy looked like a friggin' dog. Crooked ear and all.
Ashura was blocking his view now. He was so close to the TV screen, his nose was nearly touching it. Inside the box, a tiny man and woman were on a stage, screaming in each other's faces and pointing rapidly at one another. Their fight was punctuated by frequent beeping noises, and other people off-screen were shouting, "JER-RY! JER-RY!" Bigger men in black T-shirts were striding around the stage, keeping an eye on the two fighters.
"Excuse me," Ashura whispered to them. "Please don't fight." The people didn't seem to hear him. Ashura twitched his left ear and raised a finger to the screen.
Not only was there solid glass between him and the humans, but the glass seemed to give his finger a tiny nip when he touched it. Ashura gasped and shot backwards, away from the TV, bumping his head on the coffee table behind him. With a disgusted groan, Sonic turned the TV off and picked up a magazine lying on the coffee table. Ashura glanced woefully over his shoulder. He had done another bad thing. He should stop being so stupid and mind his own business like he was supposed to.
The lights flickered, which seemed to tick Sonic off for no reason. He sat up straight all of a sudden, cursing under his breath. Then he looked down at Ashura, who was now under the coffee table with his hands over his ears. Sympathy crept into his heartafter all, Ashura was just a kid on the inside, and his brotherbut he pushed it down. "It's nothing to be scared of, Ashura. I've seen worse, trust me. And you look like an idiot under there."
"I'm not an idiot," Ashura replied softly. "I'm scared."
"Yeah, same difference. Big guy like you, scared o' storms."
"A storm" Ashura made the mistake of trying to sit up, and whacked his head against the glass underside of the table. He fell silent for several seconds, thoroughly embarrassed, then continued miserably, "A storm broke the island. My home."
The phone rang above him. Ashura twisted his head to look up at it through the glass tabletop. He couldn't recall if he had ever seen a telephone before. He watched intently as Sonic picked up the receiver and muttered, "Hello."
Thunder crashed. A loud buzz followed. Sonic was thrown clear to the other side of the room and slammed against the wall, knocking over the couch and a plaque from the wall on his way. The smell of burning hair quickly arose.
Ashura wailed and covered his head with his hands. The receiver lay on the floor near him, blackened around the earpiece and smoking slightly. Sonic had been electrocuted through his phone. Ashura wanted to run again, wanted to run so badbut then he realized that he had to make sure Sonic was all right. He couldn't leave his little brother when he was hurt, could he?
Ashura scrambled out from under the coffee table, leapt over the fallen couch, and ran to the corner where Sonic sagged against the wall, his eyes half-open and rolled up into his head. The fur on his right ear was singed and steaming. Ashura grabbed Sonic by the shoulders and shook him. "Sonic, are you all right? Oh, Sonic . . ."
Sonic opened his eyes a little wider, but they focused on nothing. He smiled dumbly and muttered a short, incoherent sentence, following by a light giggle. Ashura had no idea what he was saying (or laughing about, for that matter), but he supposed the talking was a good sign. As he let out a sigh of relief, the smell of smoke became stronger, and the air, hazy. Ashura looked back at the phone. Wispy blue smoke was floating out of the ear– and mouthpiece. That wasn't right, he knew.
Something else began to happen then. The blue smoke swirled upward and seemed to be taking on form. It was turning into something. Ashura squeezed his eyes shut and turned his head away, beginning to panic. He was getting the same harried, trapped feeling that he'd had on Emerald Isle, in the middle of the funnel. Almost without knowing, he pulled Sonic protectively closer.
A deep, smooth male voice said, "You have too many fears, Ashura the Hedgehog," and it was not Sonic. He heard footsteps coming towards him, and the sarcastic voice continued. "Look at you. You're a man; a full-grown hedgehog, and you're shaking like a leaf. I've seen pathetic things in my day, but you are at the top of the list for certain." Someone clutched Ashura's shoulder and spun him around. Ashura swung his fist blindly and felt it connect. His eyes snapped open.
The speaker was a fox. A blue fox, with dark red eyes. And it was obvious that something was not right with him. He was far too small to have such a deep voice, and too strong. Ashura had not hit the fox; the fox had caught his fist in his hand.
Plus, he had two tails.
Ashura attempted to growl, but only managed a harsh squeaking sound in his throat, and swung his other fist. The fox caught it, too. Then he pinned Ashura's arms by his sidesholding his fists securely against the floorand came nose-to-nose with him. "I'll get right to the point," he said. "My name is Akuma. I aim to rule this petty planet very soon. You will be my plaything for the next week or so . . . or maybe the rest of your sad, pointless life, depending on how much fun I have with you. You will experience Hell as you have never known it."
Sonic muttered something again, catching Akuma's attention. For a brief moment, his eyes turned sky blue as he looked at the hedgehog. Ashura used the pause well: he brought up his foot and kicked Akuma in his stomach. As soon as the fox released Ashura's fists, the hedgehog delivered a crushing blow to his jaw. You don't ever hurt my brother, he thought coldly.
"You . . ." Sonic mumbled, pointing at Ashura. "What're you doin' in m'house?"
"You brought me here," Ashura said, lifting him to his feet. "Please act normal. I need your help."
"What help?" Sonic asked in a perfectly normal voice, though he spoke nonsense. "Get out my house . . . There's Tails . . ." Ashura felt Akuma's hand strike him in the small of his back, and he fell to the floor, temporarily paralyzed. "Good . . . Get'm out, Tails," Sonic went on, having no idea what he was saying. "Gladly," Akuma replied, grabbing hold of Ashura's legs. He was helpless as the fox dragged him across the living room, grabbed his long extra quill and stood him up. Then he turned him around, and Ashura saw he was facing the window. The curtains flew open, revealing the angry skies and empty air. A single thought flashed through Ashura's mind: He's going to throw me out the window. "Sonic!" he screamed. "Sonic, help me!"
His cries brought Sonic back to full consciousness. "Oh my God," he whispered when he saw a blue Tails look-alike preparing to throw Ashura through the window. He lunged, and managed to tackle the fox to the floor in the nick of time. Ashura fell against the wall and scrambled back as far as he could, until his back touched a small metal bookcase. Sonic stood up quickly. "Tails, you're all right! . . . No . . . What's happened to you?"
"Tails is now nobody's concern," Akuma said, sitting up. "His empty-minded soul has been cast away forever, its place taken by something much greater."
"Get away from the window, Sonic," Ashura warned, his voice little more than a whisper. Sonic heard the message, but it was too late. An invisible force, like a bomb exploding, threw him through the glass and several feet away from the building. Then he began to fall.
"No!" Ashura cried, running to the window and peering out. Leftover shards of glass sliced into his palms, but he ignored them. Sonic was falling rapidly, screaming in terror. Normally, he was used to falling from great heights; he even leapt from them. But it was as if a giant hand were forcing him down; he was falling so fast, his quills bent upwards, and he couldn't turn over to try and land on his feet.
It was like a reflexive action; Ashura jumped out of the window. "Fool," Akuma sneered, vanishing into thin air.
Ashura stretched out and actually willed himself to fall faster. Not exactly the first thought to come to someone falling from the top of a six-story building. But he had an idea; if he could catch Sonic before they reached the ground, then he could flip himself underneath Sonic, and hit the ground first. Sonic could possibly be spared death. Of course, that would mean Ashura would die. He knew that, but ignored it. He was unneeded; Sonic wasn't.
Not fast enough. Sonic would hit the ground before Ashura could reach him. I'm dying for nothing. Sonic will die too. It's my fault. Tears came to his eyes as the gap between Sonic and the lawn below closed. Fifteen feet, eight feet, three feet . . .
And thena stunning flash, similar to lightning but much brighter, followed by darkness.
Ashura saw the golden light all around, and felt very warm and calm, and thought, I must be dead. It was the only explanation he could think of. He had never felt like this before.
Through the golden haze covering his body, he saw a face. Not too much of the detail; just the outline of the face, eyes and nose. Who are you? Ashura tried to ask, but found that he couldn't speak. He couldn't move. Maybe the fall had left him permanently damaged.
Maybe he was in heaven.
Demons can go to heaven?
A feeling of intense fatigue swept over him suddenly, and Ashura felt like fifty-pound weights had been hung from his eyelids. Reluctantly, he allowed himself to sleep.
When Ashura next awoke, he was staring up at a sandstone ceiling. The atmosphere was cold, and the floor was gritty and . . . soft, somehow. Ashura closed his fist, and brought it up to his face. When he opened it, sand drifted out, and he barely had time to close his eyes. Sand? A cold feeling? I must be . . . Ashura sat up quickly and looked around just in time to see a large, orange-and-black fish swim past the cave entrance. He felt sick suddenly, realizing that he was in water . . . and still breathing.
He looked to his left, and saw that Sonic was here also. He was lying still, covered by a golden veil of light. Ashura didn't have much memory of being awake earlieror dreaming, whatever it was, but he remembered himself being surrounded by the same golden light. I wonder what that's for?
Then he remembered jumping out of the window, and the other injuries he had received that day. They were all gone. Amazed, Ashura looked at his hands, sliced by glass: no cuts. He felt the side of his face. No blood, no lump, no pain. He didn't know whether to be shocked, or to just shrug it off. He had been shocked all day; he wasn't sure there was much more that could surprise him.
Standing next to Sonic was the strangest human Ashura had even seen. He wasn't even sure if he could call her a human. Her skin was ashen gray, and her nearly waist-length hair was pink. The hair was pushed back, revealing pointed ears.
She was a slender creature, dressed almost entirely in black. She wore a tight black halter dress that covered her feet, numerous black bracelets on each wrist, and two black chokers. On the front of her dress were two pointed golden lines, one running from chest to mid-thigh and the other wrapping around her waist. These lines intersected over her navel, making a sort of cross. The collar of her dress stuck out in tiny spikes. And speaking of spikesthere were six long black spines growing out of her back; three on each side. She was also very tall, undoubtedly over six feet, dwarfing Ashura.
The hedgehog was both fearful and spellbound. There was something beautiful about this creature, in a powerful, haunting sort of way. She stood with her back ramrod straight, her head bowed, eyes closed and hands folded behind her back. She was whispering something, but Ashura couldn't hear her.
After a couple more minutes, the golden veil faded, revealing Sonic unconscious but unharmed. The woman opened her slanted, jade green eyes and looked up at Ashura. The timid hedgehog stared back, but he wasn't looking her in the face. He kept his eyes focused on her slim body. Her sides seemed to rise and fall in an unnatural way with each breath, rather than her chest. Gills, Ashura thought distantly. She breathes with gills. How am I breathing?
The woman smiled pleasantly. "Are you feeling better?" she asked gently. Ashura had never heard a voice like hers. The calm kindness in it made him tremble. "Don't be afraid," the woman said. "I know you have had a terrible day, but you are quite safe here. I am using my power to keep a barrier of oxygen around the both of you, so you won't have to worry about drowning."
"Is my brother alright?" Ashura asked, his voice almost a whisper. The woman nodded. "You both will be fine."
"Th . . . Thank you," Ashura said. "You're quite welcome," the woman replied.
There was a period of silence (nervous on Ashura's behalf), in which Sonic began to stir. As soon as he opened his eyes, he yelped and scrambled as far backwards as he could. The woman seemed not to be surprised by his actions, and watched with a look of amusement. "Sonic, she's not going to hurt you!" Ashura cried, crawling across the sand to him. "She made us better, and she's keeping us alive right now!" Sonic glanced at him, then back at the strange woman. "He speaks the truth," she said. Sonic exhaled slowly, as if he had been holding his breath. "Whatever. Guess I'll believe anything today."
"How did we get here . . . and who are you?" Ashura asked. "I am Sakana Uni," said the woman, "and it was I who saved the two of you from your fall. I have also erased the memory of that event from the minds of all who saw it. Everyone thinks that you," Sakana looked at Sonic, "are still after your brother, and that he is still at large."
"But how?" Sonic asked. "The extent of my psychic power perplexes even me," Sakana said. "But I still pale in comparison to Akuma. He is possibly the strongest physical being in the universe." Sonic and Ashura glanced uncertainly at each other.
Then Ashura asked, "What do Sonic and I have to do with the monster?"
"You have not yet found out?" Sakana asked, her eyes holding a look that said she didn't want to be the one to tell him. Ashura shook his head solemnly. Sakana sighed. "Judging from your past, I'm not surprised anyone hasn't told you of your legacy."
She knows everything, Ashura thought. He looked at Sonic again, but Sonic was staring at Sakana. She sighed again, and began to tell Ashura of his destiny.
