Chapter 11- Sacrifice
Haze opened her eyes and looked around, frightened. Where was she, she wondered to herself, and why was she alone...? Haze could've sworn that she was taken away from her brother and everyone else, but now, she was all by herself. 'What gives?' Haze thought to herself as she got up from the ground. She suddenly spotted the red chaos emerald that Shadow had thrown to her before. She picked it up and looked around again. Nothing but darkness...
Out of nowhere, Metal Sonic charged at her with blinding speed. Haze quickly jumped out of the way, her surprised yelp echoing through the empty abyss. Metal quickly turned around and charged at her again. Haze evaded this attack again but was soon knocked sideways by a giant robotic hand. When she recovered she saw three large missles aimed at her. She wiped the blood from her mouth and then jumped out of the way, landing into a backflip. She hit the ground in a kneeling position and she stood. Cyborg Eggman was firing machine guns in her direction, so she took off running quickly, the bullets hitting the ground behind her.
Metal appeared in front of her and grabbed her with an iron grip. Haze struggled to break away, but eventually did so, before gun fire was shot at her. Metal was impacted by the flying bullets but barely harmed. His leering red eyes stared after Haze before he sped toward her once more. Haze looked over her shoulder and saw Metal rushing toward her. In panic, she let out a scream of complete fear.
Back with the group
Shadow reopened his eyes slowly and sat up. Everyone around him was either waking up and trying to recover fro the tramatizing attack or lay unconcious on the ground. Vinny shook his head and then sighed. Vector, Charmy, Knuckles and Espio were already beginning to plot revenge against the two machines. Amy and Cream were talking softly two each other, Hope and Rouge were trying to wake Michelle and Sonic was sitting up as well, except he looked terribly wounded.
"This is insane!" Vector rasped, his breaths coming in heaves.
"We have to do something..." Cream whimpered softly.
"I say we go look for them." Charmy announced angrily.
"We couldn't track them even if we tried!" Knuckles grolwed in a frustrated voice.
"But I know who probably could..." Espio muttered.
Everyone looked at him with wondering eyes. Rouge grew intensly angry. She may not like Haze but to see Knuckles in so much pain was unbearable to her. She got in his face and screamed:
"Well! Spit it out already!"
Espio was a little surprised by this and took a step back. Vinny stood and put his hand on Rouge's shoulder.
"Calm down. If you'd just..." he began before she smacked him away furiociously.
"Shut up! I don't know who you are, but you don't need to tell me what to do! I can control myself just fine!" the bat snapped.
"Rouge, what's wrong with you!" Sonic asked, his voice filled with anger. "You have no need to react like that! He's only trying to help you!"
"Who asked you!" she screamed back.
"What the hell is your problem!" Hope cried out, her temper beginning to rise.
"None of buisness!" Rouge answered.
Pretty soon, everyone was bickering except Espio, Shadow, Cream, Vinny and Michelle. After a bit, Shadow grew tired of hearing them argue.
"EVERYONE SHUT UP!" he suddenly screamed over everyone. The group grew quiet. "MY GOD, WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH ALL OF YOU? MY SISTER JUST DISAPPEARED WITH TWO PSYCHOTIC ROBOTS AND YOU GUYS ARGUING FOR SOMETHING THIS STUPID? YOU SHOULD BE ASHMAED OF OF YOURSELVES!" Shadow took a deep breath to regain his form.
"I mean, look at us... we all have been fighting too much tonight. That is well understood. But it doesn't mean we go turning on each other. I know i kind of sound like a hypocrite because of my little disappearing act from before, and I'm sorry for that. But... we gotta get ourselves together. We're all falling apart because of all this stress from Eggman and Metal returning, and Midni-- I mean Michelle trying to kill us as well. Things are out of control, and we all know that. Including Vinny and he just got here.
"We can't lose it now. I mean," he paused with a sort of sad laugh, "I just lost my sister that I found not too long ago. I have no idea where she is, and I'm afraid that Metal has already killed her... So... we just need to stop all of this madness now so we can help her, even if we're all not envolved..."
Shadow sighed and a few tears rolled down his face. Everyone was looking at him, confused. They all felt bad about what just happened, and they all couldn't believe that Shadow had opened up to them in a way. Hope even felt sorry for the black and red hedgehog. Shadow wiped his face and looked at Espio.
"Say what you were going to say Espio." Shadow told him tiredly.
Espio hesitated, but nodded. "I think Shadow can use Chaos Control to take us all to Haze. All he'd have to do was think about her and the Chaos emerald would lead the way, right?" he explained glancing at Shadow.
Shadow nodded, but Sonic then put in. "It'd be harder for him to take anyone but himself, and he's in no shape to."
Shadow knew this, but he couldn't do it on his own. So there'd be no point in going. He then knew what had to be done.
"No Sonic, it's fine. I'll do it, no problem." Shadow stated, knowing he was lying.
Sonic looked at him confusedly. "Shadow you... can't..." Sonic stammered, taken by surprise of his last comment.
Shadow looked at him straight in the eye and said in a steady voice, "Yes I can."
After a short pause, Sonic nodded. Michelle had just regained conciousness and was trying to decipher what was going on. Hope looked at her and she smiled softly.
"Nice of you to join us." she said quietly.
Michelle unsurly nodded. Her ears twitched at a suddenly sound coming from behind her and she turned to look. It was Phantom and Shadow Fox. They stopped at a good distance, wondering what was going on.
"Midnight, what're you doing?" the male twin-tailed fox questioned.
"I'm... not quite sure..." she answered looking at everyone else.
Sonic was watching her with hopeful eyes. Was she going back to the good ol' Tails that he once knew? Well, she could never do that. That Tails was a "boy". But he still longed for his best friend back, maybe even something more. Michelle looked back at him for a moment then to her brother.
"C'mon, let's get out of here." Shadow Fox directed.
Michelle shook her head. "I can't..."
Phantom understood very well what was happening here. "Shadow, she remembers who she is." he informed his friend.
"What do you mean by that!" Shadow Fox asked, obviously frustrated.
"You know before you lost your sister, she wasn't at all evil. You've told me all you could remember about her, and from you description, she wasn't at all the killing machine that we saw before." Phantom explained.
Shadow Fox looked up at Phantom then to his sister. "O...kay, so what?"
"We should leave her be." Phantom beckoned.
"Wait no!" Charmy flew over to the two. "Why don't you stay here for a while. You could help us get Shadow's sister back. You should know how he feels Shadow Fox. He just found her around the same time you did. Now that she's gone, and we have a chance to save her, we'll need all the help we can get." He said.
Shadow Fox cocked his head to the side for a moment, but then nodded. "Alright, fine. But it's only because I can relate to the guy." he replied with a smirk.
Moments later, everyone was standing in a circle around the black and red hedgehog with the exception of Michelle, Cream and Amy. Shadow held up the blue chaos emerald and pictured Haze, his always smiling sister, in his mind and called out: "CHAOS... CONTROL!" A bright light came around the group and they all disappeared. Michelle sighed. "I hope they'll be okay..." she whispered to herself.
With Haze
Haze laid on the ground tired and a little beaten up. They just wouldn't give up, an dshe was running out of energy quickly. She thought this was the end, until a blue light formed about 4 yards from her. She got up and looked to see everyone standing there looking around. Knuckles spotted Haze first and ran to her.
"Haze, you're okay!" he exclaimed pulling her into a hug.
Haze began to blush madly. "Technically anyway..." she whispered hugging him back.
Everyone walked over to speak to the pink hedgehog, but there was one missing.
"Where's Shadow...?" she asked suddenly.
Vector raised an eyebrow. "He's the reason we got here." he answered. "He should be here."
Haze's eyes searched the area until she spotted Shadow lying on his back. She yelled his name and ran to her brother. Shadow's eyes were half open and his breathing was stalled.
"Shadow, what's the matter with you!" Haze asked getting on her knees next to him.
Shadow looked up at his sister and smiled a little. "Nothing.. really..." he told her in a hushed voice.
"How did you...?" she looked back all the people who arrived with Shadow then back at him. "Oh no, Shadow you didn't..."
"I had to..." Shadow flinched at the jolts of pain that he felt. "I knew this would happen anyway..."
Haze had already begun to cry softly. Shadow looked at his stster and grinned softly. "Haze it's alright... I did it for you, so don't worry..."
"But Shadow... you-- you're going to..." her voice broke off as she began to sob.
"It doesn't matter... as long as you stay safe and kick Eggman's ass... I don't care about anything else right now." Shadow informed her, struggling to keep his eyes open.
"Shadow no..." she whimpered helplessly.
"Don't... forget..." Shadow whispered to her as his eyes finally closed for the last time.
Haze looked at him her eyes wide with sorrow. "Shadow...? Shadow get up! Shadow open your eyes!" she screamed in hysterics. When he didn't respond she began to bawl even harder. "SHADOW!"
-End of Chapter-
(A/N: Well one... Damnit, I kept running out of time! No fair! Two... That iron grip comment was kind of like a joke. Get it? (smiles) Thirdly: Lord I made myself cry writing that last bit... and D: Oh NOOOOO! SHADOW WHYYYY? (ahems) okay original thingy now:)
Me- (crying (literally)) I told you so... geez... Read and review damnit... I need a tissue.
Angel Fox- Here ya go. (hands me a tissue)
Me- Thank you... Now, I know you may hate me right now, but it's not as bad as you think it is. I SWEAR JUST DON'T HURT ME OKAY! Now like I said, read and review damnit...