Being Free
Written by Airo Smicktor
I do not own ANY Sonic characters people! Why do I need to explain such things?
Chapter 13 - Pieces
"Fraction - A disconnected piece; a fragment."
Action Three – Depletion. Description of Action: To remove the memory banks of Project Shadow to fully complete the Re-Birth process and Project Re-Birth. Description of Action: Access the stored memory banks of Project Shadow in the brain of Project Shadow; delete all memories that will not be required for regular life and battle functions, re-activate mind traits, thus fully reactivating Project Shadow. Initiating...Action is currently being carried out...
"Vector! Vector! Wake up, it's time to move." Espio said, kneeling down.
"Urgh... Just another hour Espio, then the bus will come in..."
"VECTOR!"
"ARGH!" Vector woke up sharply after hearing the high-pitched scream from Charmy. "GAH! The light boys! THE LIGHT! It's heading right for us! Get down Knuckles!"
"Snap out of it Vector, we're safe now, look!"
Vector paused for a moment to take in his surroundings. He saw that he, Espio and Charmy were no longer at the Ocean Palace anymore. The three detectives were in an alleyway, in what appeared to be a built up area of city.
"Where are we Vector?" Charmy asked, in an excited tone.
"I think the real question here is HOW did we get here." Espio replied.
"Alright boys, settle down, I'll figure this out, just give me a minute to think this over..." Vector needed as much time thinking time as he could get, he was just as confused as his Chaotix partners.
'One moment, I was standing on a beach with my main man Knuckles...' Vector thought'...about to pull Project Shadow out from under a pillar, when the pillar blows up, and a really bright light comes out of nowhere! Very strange... But not entirely surprising I suppose... Project Shadow was designed as a weapon wasn't he? Perhaps it was some kind of self-destruct mechanism...'
"Well?" Charmy asked
"How we got here isn't important right now, as long as it doesn't happen again." Vector replied
"But where are we Vector, the client is going to be REAL mad if he finds out we're lost!" Espio stated
"Uh... It isn't normal for cars to be travelling over roof-tops is it?"
"Well, not really I think..." Vector looked up, and saw many hover-cars speeding overhead, high above the buildings. "...Actually, it is normal in one city... Boys, I know where we are! Let's get moving; we don't want our client to think that we've been napping on the job!"
"So, do you think it was some kind of Chaos Control that sent us here?" The fox asked
"Without a doubt Tails." Knuckles replied."Shadow did have a Chaos Emerald with him when he... Maybe he didn't want us to see him like that, a final act with his last breath..."
"Will Sonic be okay?"
"Yeah... He'll be fine, he's just asleep right now."
"...Umm, I meant about, you know... Shadow's..."
"Oh. In that case, we shouldn't rush him. You know how badly he took it the last time, and this time if Shadow's gone for good, then Sonic might be even worse. You saw what Sonic was like after ARK."
"Yeah... Wait, what do you mean if Shadow's gone?"
"Uhh..." Sonic stirred, slowly waking up from his slumber, and attracting the attention of his two companions. "No... Amy... Get back..."
"Hey Sonic! Rise and shine!" Tails said happily
"Huh? What... Where are we?" The hedgehog asked
"Just outside Grand Metropolis, that's the next location on the letter Eggman sent us..."
Sonic's eyes narrowed with hatred. 'Eggman,' he thought, 'I'll get him for what he did to Shadow! This time it'll be for good!' "All right! Let's blast through with Sonic Speed! Next stop: Grand Metropolis!" With that said, Sonic took off towards the city with Tails following closely behind him, and Knuckles following Tails. Knuckles didn't mind taking up the rear guard position, it allowed him a lot of thinking time, which rarely showed in his facial expressions.
'Something tells me...' Knuckles thought'The spirits tell me... Shadow might not be dead. He came back before, so why should this time be any different? Where did the others go? My boys were right next to me, and now they're nowhere in sight... I wonder if Rouge is gonna be okay... No, she's a tough girl, she'll pull through... Hey... I wonder why Sonic called out for Amy when he woke up... Could it be that soon the chased will become the chaser?'
"Sir, Sir! Take a look at these transmissions we're receiving from Space Colony ARK!" Corporal Jenkins shouted, looking at the computer screen.
"Let me have a look...' His superior, a man known asGeneral Walker, said, moving over to the screen."What? Project Shadow? What is this about?"
"I'm not sure Sir, but the latest one talks about erasing Shadow's memories."
"What? That doesn't sound very good, considering that his memories might not even be real anyway, and especially after what happened... Nevermind that! Can you stop that?"
"I call up the computer interception team, they'll be able to hack into the system and stop whatever's going on Sir."
"Excellent, we don't want anything else going wrong with Shadow,you and I bothremember what happened the last time..."
"Come in! Come in! Vector, can you hear me?" Eggman was talking into his communicator, trying to reach the Chaotix.
"Loud and clear boss! Sorry for the delay, we got a little caught up in other people's problems." Came the reply from the communicator, the voice belonging to the green crocodile leader of the Chaotix Detective Agency.
"You haven't got time to mess around with other people! From now on, you will quickly deal with anyone who tries to slow you down!"
"Roger that boss!"
"Now, where are you now?"
"Well, we're in the Grand Metropolis right now..."
'What a stroke of luck!' the Doctor thought, 'That's where Metal Sonic has sent an army of robots to collect energy for the Fleet his plans to use to take over! I can have them do the dirty work of taking out those betraying robots AND slow down Metal's progress at the same time!'
"Here's your next mission." Eggman spoke."Destroy all of Eggman's robots holding the city! Every single one of them!"
"Yes sir!"
Warning, central nerve centre of Space Colony ARK is being accessed, with the intention of an override attempted in relation to Project Being Free...Therefore Re-Birth is in serious jeopardy. Initiating security protocols to prevent access. Contact being established with surviving member of the Robotnik family line...
Eggman then turned his communicator off. It seemed that for once the law was actually useful to him! He'd have his revenge on that treacherous Metal Sonic soon enough, but now it was about time to check on other matters, namely that Echidna girl that had disappeared with the red Chaos Emerald. Eggman needed to see who she was, and if she'd kept her word about handing Fang the emerald. Eggman started up his small laptop, and it quickly booted up to the menu screen.
"Well, it seems I have two new messages. Let's see what this one says..."
'Intruder has been detected in abandoned base No. 465H, located underneath the Power Plant of the Grand Metropolis. Intruder has been able to continue through the base as main power supply was turned off the day that Metal Sonic took over.'
"I guess Metal thought he needed all the power he could get. Curses! That base held some very important experiments! I just hope that who ever snuck in switches on the power, so I can see what they are up to..."
Darkness.
Nothing more, nothing less.
The hollow metallic halls of the abandoned base stood still, almost trapped in dead air. It seemed that not a soul had dared ventured inside for months. Until now, as the sound of footsteps rang down the corridors, interrupted by the hollow thud of a harsh kick coming into contact with a section of a wall. A roar of anger and frustration often accompanied this collection of noise.
"I WILL KILL HIM! WHEN I GET MY HANDS ON EGGMAN HE WILL SUFFER THE MOST EXCRUSHIATING PAIN IMAGINABLE!" Rouge screamed as she kicked another dent into the wall. She had spent the previous quarter-hour venting her frustration on anything she could find. "I will find him...Then I will DESTROY HIM! HE WILL NEVER DARE TAKE ANYTHING AWAY FROM ME AGAIN!"
Rouge headed again down the corridor, and came across a locked door with a keypad. It had a form of the 'Eggman Insignia' on it.
"There must be something important in there... Then I'll take it! It'll be a good lesson to teach Egg-Brain for sending me here!" Rouge quickly typed in the pass code:
M-A-R-I-A.
It was a very common password. The door slid open very slowly, probably due to the fact that the whole base seemed to be running on minimal power, just enough for life-support. Rouge stepped into the room to discover a strange kind of capsule and a control panel.
"Let's get some light on the subject here, I can't see anything!" Rouge began typing away at the panel, activating the energy generators to release power back into the base. The main lights in the ceiling flickered, then lit up and glowed brightly, as did two robotic sensors in the corner of the room. Rouge smirked to herself, with a glint of evil in her eyes as she finally took a good look at the capsule in the centre of the room. Her eyes widened in a mixture of fear, bewilderment and disbelief.
In the pod, surrounded in a strange bubbling green liquid, with his eyes closed, was the familiar black hedgehog with red stripes on his quills. Rouge quickly scanned the panel, and slammed her hand down on the release button. Her mind was racing, running only on pure emotion, deaf to the world around her, including the thump of robotic limbs slowly moving towards her. The liquid drained out of the pod as Rouge continued to stare in disbelief. Then, the pod's lid lifted up, revealing fully the contents inside. The hedgehog opened his eyes, revealing the cold blood-red eyes behind, that could only belong to one person – The Ultimate Life-Form, Shadow the Hedgehog.
Rouge and Shadow stared at each other, one looking in amazement, the other in confusion. Rouge open her mouth to speak, but found herself cut off by the sharp sound of heavy gunfire as a large robot with machine-guns where arms should be began firing. She found herself being half-shoved, and half carried out of the way as the capsule Shadow had been in exploded. Rouge looked up at him as he placed her on the floor.
"Stay here." Shadow coldly said, almost emotionless, before leaping up onto a wall as the robot continued to fire at the Ultimate Life-Form.
"All Eggman robots must be eliminated!" Came the robotic voice of the machine.
Rouge was shocked by what was happening, watching as Shadow effortlessly dodged the heavy gunfire directed at him. Rouge knew this couldn't last for very longer without someone getting hurt, parts of the wall were being blown to pieces. She knew she'd have to step in, and fast.
'Doctor Robotnik, the generators in base No. 465H have been reactivated, do you wish to access security systems to deal with the situation?'
"No, activate CCTV. Let's see who's inside my old base then..."
The picture on Eggman's laptop changed to show the inside of a room, where the familiar form of Rouge the Bat was standing, watching a large robot firing at a fast moving black blur.
"Well, well! It seems that Rouge has finally tried to steal something even out of her league! She's activated E-123 Omega, my finest E-Series robot! I was saving him to use with my Egg Fleet, but I suppose he'll do just fine against Metal Sonic's Egg Pawns, such useless machines... I only produced them as a joke..." But it was the fast moving black blur on the screen that was catching his attention.
"...Interesting... I wasn't planning to use him for a while... but right now any help I can get will be useful, and since they all think that I'm taking over the world... Another Shadow fighting against Metal would be very useful... But why is Rouge not with the real Shadow... There may be a chance to use Shadow for my own gain... Computer, switch off CCTV, I think Omega will handle this situation by himself... Now load up that other message that I received."
'Affirmative. Message comes from... Space Colony ARK... Subject: Re-Birth complications'
"...Very interesting..."
"Sir, I think that the computer system on ARK has already started carrying out this 'Re-Birth' programme." Corporal Jenkins said.
"That's what Eggman was talking about. So he wasn't making it up. What is it doing anyway?" General Walker asked
"It seems to be taping into the mind of Shadow, or at least into the memory banks that it has..."
"Okay, get everyone that's computer minded onto this, I want this 'Re-Birth' stopped at whatever cost! And try and find out where the heck Shadow is! We can't risk Shadow losing his memories AGAIN!"
"...Score..." Fang said, as he gazed down at the Chaos Emerald that was held in the hand of the lifeless body of Shadow the Hedgehog, who due to the effects of the Re-Birth being carried out, looked remarkably like Sonic due to the new blue colouring of his fur. This chance event actually solved the problem of how he was going to get the emerald from him. Not that Fang enjoyed taking the emerald like this, but it wasn't as if the hedgehog would be able to use it anyway.
"Sorry blue, but right now, my need's greater than yours..." Fang said, as he reached over to the clenched hand of the hedgehog, before slowly unwrapping the fingers from around the gem.
'Odd.' Fang thought, 'Hand's still... warm... didn't die to long ago then...' Fang took the gem from out of the hand, and placed the hand over Sonic's chest, as he did with the other hand. 'At least when someone else comes 'round here, they'll know what to do...' Fang thought as he pocketed the emerald.
He was about to turn away when he noticed something – Sonic's hands seemed to be moving up and down on his chest. 'What the? HE'S NOT DEAD! The guy's still breathing!' Fang kneeled back down again.
"Yo, Sonic! You awake? Hello?" Fang said to the hedgehog, hoping for a response, unaware of the true identity of the person he was trying to wake up.
Caution, memory erasing of Project Shadow has been interrupted and stopped. Restart attempted to continue Third Action of Re-Birth. Security lockout detected, restart failed. Locating source of infiltration...Source found to belong to international government secret agency known as the M.B.I. No known reference of such an organisation existing. It may therefore be associated with G.U.N. Further investigation required to determine if this is a trust-worthy organisation...Attempting to contact the M.B.I., Action Three is temporally put on hold...
Silence.
Nothing more, nothing less.
It was a miracle that Rouge had broken up the fight between the two. The room now lied in ruin, machinery and computers obliterated, sparks flying out of cut wires; only a 20-car pile-up on a freeway could look worse, and even then it would have to try really hard. Rouge stood, looking at her two teammates, thinking about just who they were. The robot had explained that he was E-123, codenamed Omega. Rouge remembered that during the Chaos incident, Eggman had used robots called the E-Series, but mostly all had been destroyed when one of then, E-102, somehow deleted his master registry of Eggman as his master, and had set out to save his 'friends' in the E-Series by... destroying them.
'With friends like that eh?' Rouge thought. 'I guess Eggman made the A.I. of the robots too good, so they thought for themselves... That might explain why Omega doesn't want to obey Eggman, since he locked him up in here...' Rouge then looked over at Shadow, or at least, the hedgehog that looked like Shadow. There was something about him, something that wasn't right. He didn't remember her, or anything for that matter. Also, he had both of his ring-bands for his gloves on... That seemed very suspicious... Was he the real Shadow? Or was this another of Professor Robotnik's experiments? At least Rouge could teach Shadow about the world, and more importantly, she had him back, even it wasn't exactly him...
"Damn, must be in a coma or something." Fang said, as he got up from his kneeled position and started walking away from the scene. "Someone'll notice the smoke and come help the poor guy, but I can't waist anymore time here, I've gotta find the rest of those emeralds. By the time I get through the city, the Casino will be open, so I can grab it no problem..." Fang walked off, unaware that behind him, he was leaving the Ultimate Life-Form.
"Okay guys, let's get moving! If we're going after Eggman, we'll have to find out where he is, and we need you for that Omega. Once we get out of this base, you'll need to find all the information about Eggman's location ASAP."
"Affirmative. Follow me. I will lead you to nearest suitable exit out of base. It will lead into the Power Plant of the city above us." Omega then began moving, with Shadow and Rouge following behind him.
"Just... What am I Rouge?" Shadow asked, still confused about nearly everything.
"It's okay Shadow, I'll explain things on the way, as long as you trust me, okay?"
Shadow thought for a moment.
'This complete stranger comes out of nowhere, and somehow gets me to agree to team up with a robot that tried to kill the both of us. But why do I feel like I can trust her so much? I can't even explain the feeling, but something inside me is telling me to go with her... Why?'
"Hmph, I'll trust you... Until I find out who I really am..."
Rouge sighed. 'You and me both Shadow...'
Urgh... this chapter turned out very badly... Stupid QuickEdit system. Ah well, at least it's up now. This chapter will probably need a couple of re-reads to be fully understood, but I hope it's worth it in the end. Okay, enough of my rubbishy talk, time to respond to reviewers...
Anthony Bault - The 'glitch' gets even worse in the next chapter! Just stay tuned to find out.
Sonic/Anime - It wasn't Sonic, the Re-Birth changed Shadow's fur colour from black to blue (just like Sonic's! I bet that hasn't been done before(!) note irony). Thanks for your love of this fic.
Celestial the Hedgird - Yes, Shadow was the one lying in the blood, poor soul. Here be the next chapter for you.
hyper Phantom - I salute back to you loyal Being Free fan! The whole idea of Shadow having the blue fur was my take on Amy mistaking Shadow for Sonic in Sonic Adventure 2 (and how it wouldn't work due to colours and all that) so I thought if you're going to mistake the ULF for Sonic, do it properly. At least I thought so. Thanks again for your review.
Please send in lots of reviews please, I love them. Not like that! I mean in a respectful way that lots of people are reading what I do and like it. So please, send them in. I have a bad feeling you might not when I end this fic. That's all your getting right now, but look out for the next chapter, and check out my other fics if you have the chance. That is all, except for one final Chaos Control.
Shadow leaps out from behind a box, holds a Chaos Emerald high in the air, and shouts out load: "CHAOS CONTROL!" At which point, I throw a custard pie in his face.
My, that was random wasn't it? Nevermind, I'd better get out of here before Shadow gets up. Bye for now!
Edited 29/03/05 for paragraphing