Author's Notes:
Usually when I publish stories, it's under the assumption that what appears onscreen will remain as is, for better or worse. I'm not in the habit of deleting and rewriting fanfics.
However, for this fic I'm making a rare exception. "Among Wolves" was my first attempt at writing a multichapter Sonic fic (as a possible sequel to Sonic Chronicles), and as such, I made a bunch of rookie mistakes: the biggest being that the first chapter was disgustingly long at 30K words. Many different POVs got jumbled and smashed together, resulting in a mess that was hard to read.
After giving it some thought, I've decided to delete the old version, make numerous line edits, and break the chapters up into a more digestible structure. No more abrupt POV shifts; everyone gets their own chapter.
At the moment I don't necessarily have plans to finish this fic simply because other projects are demanding my time, but I think this will be a good place to leave off for when I do decide to pick it back up. After all, if I can't even follow my own writing, how can I expect anyone else to? That's why I hope this version improves on its predecessor, if only by a little.
Prologue.
Sunshine warmed her for the first time in forty centuries.
For Shade, the phenomenon bordered on impossible. Nothing could have shone through the high walls of Nocturne's cathedral; here the only light came from torches set in bronze sconces, their eerie glow echoed by the High Praetorians who stalked these cloisters and the distant stars they'd named themselves after, fleetingly cold at best.
The last time this kind of light touched Nocturne was on the eve of their takeover: a day they long awaited but had condemned to failure. That last sunset, though it painted the sky in shimmering bands of crimson and gold, had reflected her own surrender back at her. Eventually it yielded to the darkness that cast them here, this mysterious dimension called the Twilight Cage, which existed outside the natural flow of time.
Argus came and asserted its will. For the next four millennia her clan lived, fought and trained in a place light seldom dared reach. Eternal dim, not enough to deprive, but just enough to make one crave the closeness of a flame; the Cage denied them even that basic nourishment to punish them.
As much as she'd tried to forget her memories of her old life, she couldn't. Her craving for warmth grew with each slow churning of the cosmos. No amount of sconces or armament glow could alleviate her need to feel the sun trickle through her fingers, even if all this hope would amount to was for naught.
Now, when she closed her eyes, some part of that hope was restored. She could feel the light as her teammates must have felt it: a soothing, honeyed warmth, at once thick and cleansing. Her wounds began to lift from their broken tissue as it grazed the delicate skin of her eyelids, calming the anxious throb pounding inside her head.
That light came from the blue hedgehog, who rippled soft whorls of Chaos energy from his metal-sheen body while he panted from exertion. He clenched his fists, widened his stance, and braced himself for one more unseen blow. His ruby irises darted in search of his missing opponent.
Somewhere within the shadows, her lord laughed. The sound quivered throughout the great cloister, growing in magnitude across the widening gulf that separated him from them. In the span of one held breath she heard the true intent of his heart. Here she heard everything: the ticking of clocks and gears he had set into motion, the minute but incalculable erosion of the years.
Sonic's shoes clinked cobblestone as he wafted to the floor.
It would have been foolish of her to deem the fight finished. The fight was never finished with Ix. Her suspicions grew into certainties when another light pinpricked suddenly in the darkness at the end of the hallway.
As Sonic squinted at it, her nerves prickled.
A white dot ringed gold in its center rippled outward. Within it one red eye emerged, saw them, blinked—this she swore true with her life—and surged forth, claiming walls and ancient tapestries of long-ago times, eating and thrashing and devouring Nocturne's insides, crumbling everything it touched, mindlessly indiscriminate as it raced toward them.
She threw up a shielding hand. Through the gaps in her fingers she saw Gizoid limbs and roasted stones tumble forth, knocked along by an invisible force.
From them she glanced up, dread squeezing a fist inside her gut. Nocturne swayed its vaulted ceiling at an unnatural angle, dry mortar grinding against ancient stone in an exhausted growl. Silt coated them in sheets, raining dust. The walls creaked and wheezed air as if any minute now the cathedral would topple on itself.
Broken Gizoid skeletons danced. This was no sunshine, no welcoming light.
Shade looked from her home to Sonic, Sonic to her home.
Drew in her breath to scream—
"Run!"
No time. Fire slammed out of the darkness and an unbearable heat killed her voice: her lord channeled a funnel with such terrible ferocity it seared through her vision, bathed her blind. Light and heat lashed against invisible walls of air like hellish tides splashing over a dam.
Without thinking Shade threw herself over her nearest teammate.
As the fire flared over them, Tails gasped inside her embrace, squeezing his eyes shut and coughing harsh breaths against the warm stone. When she covered his mouth with her hand so he would not inhale the smoke, he gagged, bucking instinctively against her to be let free.
A lick of hot air rode up the grooves of her spine like a salamander, and she shuddered. She tightened her grip on his shoulders, refusing to let the fire eat him. More flames came and went, swarming in droves, collecting sweat along her flesh.
Soon her own throat clenched painfully and she was also deprived of air, thirsting for it; the blood pounded in her head and nausea loomed in the smell of her charring armor; it seemed all there was and all there ever would be was this overbearing heat, stealing everything from them in return for what they had stolen from her lord.
Sonic stood, monstrously calm. He braced his hands to deflect the maelstrom with his own energy, ignoring the sheer heat that would have otherwise devoured him. The fire slammed and whorled and lashed its burning heads in an attempt to reach him. Screams abounded as the team thought he was going to be swallowed whole. Still he remained, his silhouette cutting stark shadows at the fringe of her vision.
He smirked as fireflies zipped past.
"Nice firecrackers! They'd probably work better if you pointed 'em up, though!"
Sonic grabbed the fire right then, held it in his hands and laughed. He tossed the entire wall of flame upwards as if he'd caught a serve, and kicked the volley through the cathedral roof.
There was a moment, airless, as she watched the volley burst through stone. Her heart gave a squirm and quieted.
The oppressive heat vanished, returned to darkness and cool smoke. The salamanders wisped away with the impact that blasted through the nave, sucked out almost entirely. The fire ebbed from a hungry blaze into a dim white ribbon and faded among the stars, leaving spots to pulse in her vision.
Tails sat up coughing, one hand flown to massage his throat. She relented him his freedom in a mixture of caution and amazement, her hand poised at his shoulder, uncertain if he would need additional support.
Her gaze drew toward the stars that now shone through the empty gap in the ceiling. Her other teammates did the same, equal degrees tentative, amazed, confused, and grateful.
Sonic wagged a finger. "Now how 'bout you put the sparklers down and we talk this over?"
"Lowly maggots," Ix swept a fiery arc with his scepter, "begone! I'll make dust of you all!"
Sonic chuckled. "Wanna bet?"
Once more they collided twin forces of nature, thunder gnashing against fire, which only left Knuckles to ask in the background, "Is everyone all right?"
Shade rubbed Tails' back, his head cradled between his arms while he breathed in fits and starts. It worried her that even as his inhalations slowed, they remained shaky, uneven.
"Come on," she urged quietly, "we've got to get moving."
"I know… " The kit tried his best to stand, but buckling knees hindered any progress he might have made. He grasped the stone wall, squeezed his eyes shut and let out another dry cough.
" …Shade?" he asked, his voice cracked. "I… don't feel so… " He wobbled, prompting her to catch him and lower him gently to the floor.
"Tails?"
Amplified by the sudden clarity the silence provided, a girl's voice rent the air. Amy jogged across the ash-ridden carpet, setting aside her hammer as she knelt beside them. She placed a hand on his brow, rustling the singe graying his matted fur. A groan seeped out of him as he suffered her touch; his eyelids winced shut.
She glanced at Shade with her mouth drawn wide. "What's wrong with him?"
Shade looked around. The team had gathered around them; while Sonic kept her lord at bay, they'd arrived in the dim, all bearing varying mixtures of hardness and wear from battle.
Her comrades. People she would fight for, if it meant a chance to be free.
"Smoke inhalation," she said. "But we can't help him unless we find a way out."
Rouge glanced at Shadow, who gave a terse nod and teleported both himself and Omega out. It faintly occurred to Shade that he still retained Scylla's Chaos Emerald.
Knuckles snapped his neck toward the smoke he left behind. "Heck's he going?"
Rouge impatiently waved him off as Amy slipped one hand under Tails' skull, cradling it close to allow the team healer to perform her diagnostic work. Cream pressed one ear against his small chest, her brows drawn tight in concentration while Cheese hovered in an anxious flutter beside her. "Cool your jets. We gotta wrap this up."
"What about Sonic?" Amy asked, and just then they flinched. A portion of the nearby wall collapsed from a psychic strike, crushed into a pile of rubble. "We can't just leave him here! This place is gonna fall apart any minute now!"
"You're not wrong." Shadow reappeared, walking toward them. "We're borrowing time at this point. The ship's fine, but the cathedral's infrastructure won't endure this battery for much longer. We've got to get topside, Sonic or no Sonic."
Rouge opened her mouth to answer him when Cream shot up, grabbing her friend's hand. "Amy? Mr. Tails isn't breathing!"
Shade began for the cloister. This fight must end.
"Wrong way, Shade." A strong hand gripped her arm, followed by a narrowing of purple irises. "You're not gonna reason with him."
She shrugged him off. She knew Sonic's stubborn streak considering Knuckles complained about it often enough. However, the ceiling groaned louder than any point he could raise.
Shade withdrew her leech blades. "Get him out of here before he inhales more," she said, pointing at Tails, "and get to the ship, all of you. I'll try and settle this quickly."
This time, no one protested.
Ash scuffed in clouds around her boots, its sound pounding in tandem with her accelerated pulse. As the thunder of battle drew near, danger prickled her senses into salience. Chaos energy swarmed Nocturne—good and evil clashed so aggressively against each other that the cathedral itself, formerly an impregnable bastion, wheezed from the strain.
She ran past a pillar the moment Sonic springboarded off, moving too quickly to register her in the shadows. Stones rained from his blast and a reflexive flash of her leech blades, poised at a cross-swing, eliminated those that would have pelted her.
How could anyone find two combatants amidst this commotion? Their bobbing and weaving was marked only by their taunts.
A throaty chuckle escaped the hedgehog. "What's the matter, Snow White? Got no prince to kiss?"
He grabbed Ix's robes and hurled him overhead at the throne, a heavy structure which toppled over with a resounding crash when his opponent slammed into it. In return, a plasma bolt sizzled his former location, turning it to singe. As Sonic leapt for him, the two exchanged a flurry of strikes and kicks that blurred into a mingle of light.
That was why she watched in horror as her lord somehow sighted her, smiled—and knowing his audience would appreciate the show, thrust the head of his scepter into Sonic's stomach. The arc caught his torso, and the resultant energy catapulted him through the wall.
Sonic tailspun with such force his impact cracked the stone in a halo of breakage, causing loose chunks to crumble down en masse. Beyond the hole resided darkness, a familiar void. He was gone for the time being, leaving her to tremble in his absence.
"Shade." Ix drifted down to meet her level, a deranged glint showing in his milky eyes. "How lovely to see you again."
She bristled, her every muscle strung to their snapping points. Her breath caught and she fought to swallow it back down upon hearing the voice that had commanded her body and mind for endless ages. She couldn't resist heeding its call. Not even now, when the very sound of its slow, sneering cadence made her nerves tingle.
When they'd saved the N'rrgal from declaring war on the Zoah colony, the Queen Mother had grown uncharacteristically somber. Enough, at least, to reflect upon the nature of the Emerald she'd bequeathed them in gratitude.
Its power, she hissed in her regal voice, was magnified through its bearer. Because the N'rrgal were a peaceful, quiet people, no longer eager to war now that their spawning pools had been restored, and the Queen possessed irrefutable proof of her lord's treason, the power she felt was like starlight.
A slow, tranquil twinkle passed from the Queen's viscous hands unto Sonic's. An inner light within the gem echoed her desire for amnesty, and it was then that Shade realized the truth: Ix may have lied, may have fostered war and belligerence for his own twisted aims, but it was the Emerald that decided to enact those desires. The gem drew upon the content of one's soul just as much as its wielder called upon its power.
It shouldn't have surprised her that her lord emitted a different kind of heat than Sonic. It crawled the lengths of his robes with a vengeful, sulfurous flame.
He tipped his head. "Tell me, why did you take these pains to see me again, hmm? Did you crawl all the way back here just for your pride?"
This wasn't him. She knew it wasn't him. The Ix she had known was now as empty and devoid of substance as this cathedral that called itself their home, just an echo of its true self. Logic dictated guilt shouldn't loom over her for excising a ghost.
A dark chuckle haunted the dusty air as a predatory smile curled his lips. "Of course not. You have no pride."
He raised one fist and telepathically caught the strike she hurled at him, that cursed energy shield of his igniting her leech blade. Light spurted from the collision like blood from a wound. Pink gouged into green to no avail, thrashed against it and—
No!
With a flick of his hand, a jagged bolt split her blade in half. Yet another grind of his fist crushed it entirely. She snarled and leapt toward him, just to be repelled by a flaring of his shield.
Her determination to cease the battle made her foolish. Shade hurried to retrieve the scraps of her blade when the butt of his scepter slammed down onto her hand, hissing pure energy against the material of her glove.
She cried out and shoved it away, knocked it backwards, cradling her fist to herself. As the searing pain ebbed, she looked back upon him like a wounded predator, bristled from equal parts spite and impotence.
"I see now," Ix drawled. "Perhaps you wish to surrender these amoebic lives as atonement for your treachery against me? How very… piteous of you."
She resisted the shiver that scurried up her flesh as his words melted into a deep, deluded laugh, one that brought to mind Knuckles' words before they infiltrated the cathedral.
Some people just want the world, no matter what it takes.
She'd never wanted this. To conquer the world had never been her dream—but in a feverish fit of self-delusion, her lord had forsaken her and her people, discarding everything they'd built in the process. For a single selfish desire, he'd cast her aside. Deemed her exile. Unworthy.
None of these had hurt more than her failure to recognize the danger that had been brewing beside her for the past four thousand years. During their travels, she'd had time to reflect on her loss since being saved, and in her meditations she had realized an incredibly clear but painful truth—her lord held no intention of living in their old world.
Now, however, the time for doubt had passed. Rising to her feet, she sauntered forth, clutching her wrist to staunch its throbbing.
"Stand aside," she said. "I don't have time to play your games anymore."
"So you say, little bug." His teeth showed in a horrible grin as he called her again by her pet name, now coming from his lips in a twisted mockery. "So you say."
How dare he. Even after all this time, how dare he. She tightened her grip on her remaining blade until the blood rushed from her quaking knuckles, their tremor strong enough to rattle the handle.
She chanced another step to retrieve her fallen blade and walked against the crackling fire, which only deepened her resolve to keep going. He could burn her, but she would prevail, if just inches at a time.
He chuckled at her attempt at bravado, tapping one finger luxuriously against his scepter handle. "Will you strike me, Shade? With that paltry toy?" He emitted a tsk, as if she should have known better.
Her remaining leech blade clattered before him.
For the first time, he seemed genuinely taken off-guard.
"What are you doing?"
"You can't own me if I don't belong to you." The distant sounds of laser fire pierced the silence outside. Sonic was fast approaching, and her window of opportunity vanishing. "All this wasted time… I should never have sworn myself to your service."
A spark of shock widened his pupilless eyes even more. Just hearing her whisper that morphed his expression into a hateful, paranoid mask.
"Don't you dare, Shade. Don't you dare come before me and try to claim righteousness. Not after all you've done in my name."
His light blistered an accusatory fire, one she couldn't look directly into without being burned. "I know, Lord. I've committed too many sins. Which is why, as of this moment… " She swallowed. "I am nameless."
"I should have known. You're nothing more than the dirt you came from, and I was an utter fool to think I could mold you into something more! Shade!" He devolved into ranting as she turned her back on him, the clench in her throat tightening as she ignored a name she could now no longer respond to, as custom demanded. As it must.
"Turn around and heed me this instant, you stupid, worthless girl—what kind of blatant idiot do you take me for? Do you truly believe I'll fall for the same trick twice? Do you believe for a single moment they'll protect you, the liar, the traitor—"
To her astonishment, his furious strikes against her dissolved in midair. Some energy shield absorbed them, faintly shimmering at its edges like the delicate iridescence of a bubble.
She looked toward a gallery window where Sonic had climbed through, propped against the sill like a nosy neighborhood gossip. A weary grin played on his lips as he tossed a thumb toward Ix.
" …Someone's got a lot of air in the tires, huh, Shade?"
She pressed a hand to her heart, her head lowered. She tried not to focus on how his impact would have otherwise killed him in his normal form, given how hard he struck the stones, and indeed bruises darkened gold fur where they'd scraped him on the way out. But Sonic must have been thinking something entirely different, for he found it prudent to wink and give her a thumbs-up anyway.
They couldn't converse for long. Rumbling quaked, making them backpedal from the steep cracks forming in the floor.
"The enemy and the traitor wish to die together," sneered Ix, his voice echoing from seemingly all directions. "How poetic. Let me make this your final resting place to commemorate, so you won't be utterly forgotten!"
He burst through the crevasse's heart. They beheld his flaming cocoon as it dislodged stones from the floor: tendrils of light wove around the floating detritus and the radiant figure suspended inside.
Sonic replaced his weary grin with a fiercer one, pumping a fist to himself. "Haha, yeah! About time you stepped up your game!" With a softer backwards glance, he added: "Stay back, okay? I'll be out in no time."
Shade walked a few steps toward him, shaking her head as she studied the orb. "Sonic, don't." Her voice was hoarse from smoke. "Forget your ego. You must leave this fight."
Was there a hint of disappointment on his face when she said that? No; she must have been imagining things. "How come? I thought the whole point was to beat him and get the Emeralds back, save the universe—you know, the usual? Heads up!"
They dodged a strike that scorched the carpet.
"You don't understand," Shade pressed. "He'll drag you under if you aren't careful."
"Heck, I'm always careful! It's this big boy who keeps dropping bombs all over the place!" Grinning, he spun around to address the Imperator with an irreverence she'd never dream of using in his presence. How could he think this a game, child's play? How could he come so close to destruction and still choose to smile? "I'd say we're just getting the party started, aren't we, Ixnay?"
Just then, echoed distantly through the great hall, Knuckles screamed: "Sonic, you moron, we gotta go! Tails is hurt!"
The pause provided the time her lord needed to land a proper blow. Energy waves slammed the two of them backwards, skipping their bodies across the floor like stones, tumbling them until they came to a stop just beneath the balcony, all to the raucous sound of Ix's laughter.
"Ha! Your weakness is going to be the death of you, worm!"
Sonic spat out dust, sniffed and gnashed his teeth. Moments later he blasted toward Ix and careened, again and again, now pounding against her lord's barrier like a fleet of burning arrows fired against a shield wall. Flames struck relentlessly from every angle. Those traces of humor had faded from him like Ix's strikes.
So it wasn't battle that forged Sonic's resolve… it was the threat of loss. The kit whose hair Shade saw him ruffle; my very best bud, he'd called him with a beaming smile. His friendly demeanor transformed into a hardened one.
She decided to seize her opportunity as he was deflected once more, thrusting out her hand for him to catch. "You can't approach him from here. If you can get me to him, we can end this quickly!"
"Sounds good to me," he replied. "Let's go!"
Shade felt her hand snatched and her body plucked into the air. Sparks trailed and ripped up the cords of fabric still somehow holding the cathedral's stolen tapestries together.
Sonic tossed her up, and curled into her hands as she held them above her head, throwing the room into a ferocious blaze the faster he spun. She'd held him like this in combat, enough times to know he contained the force of a projectile. Grasping him in his super form was like holding a miniature sun between her hands, with its tremendous power waiting yet to be released.
Ix looked at her one last time.
(don't think about it don't hear his voice)
She blinked, and Nocturne—not this pale imitation but true Nocturne—appeared before her. Her lord stood in resplendent robes, his expression once kind, once wise, his throne a temple of sandstone and moss lit by that last dying sunset.
"When you swore your life to me, it became mine.
"Your first breath and your last…
"Shade… "
She squeezed her eyes shut.
And threw Sonic with all her might.
(Forgive me, my lord.)
The next thing she knew—
Singe on the carpet, a ring of blackened stones. Those were all that remained of the illusion. Even so, a terrible emptiness gnawed at her, and she clenched her jaws to keep her vision from blurring while she knelt panting on the floor. It had to be done. It had to be done.
Beside her, he shivered.
" …Sonic?"
"Heh," he said, managing a smile. "Don't worry. This always happens."
A flaring of the light forced her back. It burned almost too much before dimming, the Emeralds' considerable power ebbing from his body.
The golden sheen swirled from his blue fur like a powerful tide receding from shore, his quills dipping into their usual weighty downward curves. His body sagged back into gravity's mold: a process he accepted with a grace she envied. If she'd had access to that kind of power, she'd never wish to let go.
Let go it did, back unto its mysterious source. Slowly that wonderful sunshine returned inside him, its healing warmth wafting from her, and with it, the feeling that everything would be set right.
Sonic exhaled as the last golden star extinguished above his head. And soon he radiated no more light, becoming the same dull shadows as her and the elements that surrounded them. Same as the darkness and the charred tapestries and the cold, flickering torches her lord left them to inherit. Smoke lingered in the shattered throne room like the empty aftermath of a nightmare.
Vibrant green eyes cracked open, full of concern. "You okay?"
She stood up, and he glanced toward the end of the hall. More stones continued to crumble down, but it all seemed distant, of no true consequence.
Sonic inhaled deeply. "Tails… "
Her shaking head prompted him to knit his brows together, and he took her hand to help himself up.
"Okay," he said. "Let's beat it the heck home."