11.
"Missed me."
The Consul's taunt dropped the match on the proverbial fumes, igniting the rage and frustration that had been building inside him. Gathering the last of his energy in one crude mass, Shadow hurled it at the catwalk where the Nocturnus stood gloating, wreathed in his energy.
He didn't need to aim. Energy burst upon contact in a thunderous shower, like a lightning blast reducing a tree to a smoldering stump. Metal screeched as it plunged into the pool below. When the light cleared from his vision, all he saw was the walkway severed above him, its gnarled, foaming edges dripping white-hot cinders.
"No," he corrected. "I didn't."
His grim smirk crumbled under a pulse of weakness that shot through him. He staggered backwards, clutching the rail for support.
The Consul uncurled from his kneeling position. "Consider yourself fortunate. She could have pushed you down the shaft."
He didn't need this. Shadow moved to turn when—
"Ugh!" A stinging in his arm broke his grip on the metal; next thing he saw was a leech blade twirling into the darkness below.
Little punk wanted to play? Fine, but he had to answer his question first.
"Where are Rouge and Omega?"
"Safe," he said, "which is far more than I can say for you."
He ducked the next swing. The blade wedged deep inside the tank of a boiler, forcing the boy to abandon it as hot steam gushed out.
His opponent tried to grab him. That foolish move earned him a fist to the mouth, his cry silenced as another jet hurtled between them.
Undaunted, Shadow parted the steam and strode through the clearing mist.
The Consul ripped his mask off to breathe, springing loose violet quills marked through with white streaks. Sonic's age, maybe younger. With no buoyancy in his eyes, unlike the lighthearted hedgehog, he gnashed his teeth at Shadow.
A thin drizzle of blood crept down his chin. His entire body quivered, tense. His resemblance to an injured animal poised to strike was not lost on Shadow. Because of that he decided to ease off for the time being.
"You can't possibly be this naive." His voice was quiet among the background hiss and whistle. "Fail the Doctor and he'll throw you away, just like—"
He caught the punch that flew toward his head, crushing the boy's fist between his fingers. Breathing hard, he punted him back onto the steel walk with a flat-heeled palm strike to the chest.
"—your friend." Shadow stifled a sigh. This whole endeavor was beginning to seem about as useful as talking to a brick wall; only difference was a brick wall held a slim chance of occasionally echoing your sentiments back to you.
The Consul wasn't listening now because he was wincing hard, eyes screwed shut, while massaging his jaw. He reached inside his mouth with two fingers and grunted as he probed out a broken tooth. He stared at it in morbid fascination, enamel shining glossy red, before tossing it down in disgust and turning his burning, hateful gaze toward Shadow.
"You'll never stop hurting people." He shook his head. "First the Gizoid, then Teukros—"
"Are you insane? It was your hubris that hurt him—"
"And it's your hubris that's going to end you!" He spat flecks, though Shadow didn't notice that nearly as much as a suspicious pause in the boiler behind him. The air had stopped whistling out of the gash.
"Get down!"
The boiler exploded, eating such a large chunk of the walkway that its halves curled under and plummeted into the pool with a hideous shrill. The boy's expression flashed from vitriol to open shock as he sacked into him, diving them both off the platform. Heartbeats later a girder exploded into the water, piercing the crumpled gnash of detritus where they would have stood had they wasted any more time arguing particulars.
Shadow's head flew above the surface. Thoroughly drenched in the foul muck, he waded through the chemical sludge masquerading as water.
He squinted in the dim and ascertained this place must have housed some kind of waste disposal system: that the deafening outflow from the porthole high above, laden with trashed cybernetics, would fill the disposal tunnel on his far right and wash its contents out to parts unknown.
Currently the water level softened its ripples, though he knew that wouldn't last for long. Metal poked jaggedly through the dark surface. Decayed cables dangled down with exposed copper filaments clinging at their frayed ends, turning the place into a grotesque industrial jungle.
Scanning the place between groaning, seeping walls, the liquid swished as he turned. No sign of the Consul. Had he… ?
Surely not. If there was a ladder out of this place, he'd have found it.
Shadow forced his way toward the primary waterfall, twisting his body from side to side to gain traction. His path cut a wedge through a slew of junk that clanked and chattered against one another. Occasionally a spare robot arm or mangled prototype drifted past, carried along on an indifferent current. He stopped only to slake off mulch that would pour down with the back of his hand.
Disgusting.
A clatter.
As it turned out, there was a ladder.
Beside a pressure hatch.
He scrambled to regain his bearings as the boy climbed along a broken girder and ran across it toward an iron crank. The Consul intended to open the hatch and flush him out. Even given the window of pause that it would take him to force it open, Shadow wouldn't have enough time to intercept.
Draw out his power. The thought entered his head unbidden, even though it sounded much like his own voice making the suggestion. He didn't have the time to question its origin. It may hurt, but at least it will render him immobile.
"You think that's going to work on me?" The Consul's shout barely registered above the swirl of water. Light streamed from his armor in thickening whorls above Shadow's trembling, tightening fist; he fell roughly to his knees and almost slipped off entirely, but cradled the girder to steady himself, shimmying across its dripping expanse. "I'm not a doll that can be knocked down at your slightest whim, though I must say good luck with that concentrate; it'll boil your blood in about fifteen seconds!"
He wasn't lying: just gathering this small portion was enough to flush an immense heatwave through his wrist. Quickly Shadow flicked out his palm and let the energy web into the air between his fingers, crafting it into the rough shape of a lance.
Hefting the crackling bolt like a javelin, he cocked back his arm. "How fortunate for you, then, you're not the only one with bad aim around here. Spear!"
He couldn't control his throw once loosed; this energy wouldn't respond like normal Chaos energy. It thrashed forth like a snake's head, flooding the room in color and shape before lashing its fangs through the girder's body, snapping it in half with a mighty crack.
"Damn," he muttered to himself, rubbing his wrist. While falling, the Consul had reached out and hugged his body around the wheel, with water from a newly-formed crack pummeling down on him. The door echoed from the frantic pounding his boot made against it; he wrenched his body away with each kick.
Shadow's ears swiveled back as they registered iron groaning under the Consul's prying fingers. Another crack punctured the wall, knifing out more water through a second hole. Pressure of this magnitude would practically turn the door into a missile.
He broke out into a sloppy run. "Stop! You'll kill us both!"
"Whatever finishes the job!" The Consul spat out a stream reddened with rust. He ducked a piece of crumpled metal that Shadow pitched at the door, punching a dent into fortified steel inches beside his head.
"Come down here," Shadow ordered. "You don't really want me dead, do you?"
"I—"
The second piece of debris he hurled caught the boy's leg. Unfortunately, his fall also dragged the wheel open and released the enormous typhoon Shadow feared would wash them out. Garbage soared on the tide before crashing into the wall, the noise like thousands of hands smashing a hollow metal drum.
Shadow gasped for air. An oncoming barrel flew his way and he dove to narrowly avoid its collision course. The tide slowed him down immensely, and though he was a mediocre swimmer who in this case could do little more than claw against the current, he managed to kick his way through until he resurfaced in an open pocket several feet beside a corroded ladder.
The rung he grabbed broke off when a hand seized his ankle and dragged him back.
"Stay down!" The Consul drove a foot into his back while simultaneously wrenching the rung upwards, crushing his windpipe under the taut iron.
Shadow gripped the bar and smashed him against the wall several consecutive times, but couldn't slake the burden huddled over his back. Couldn't even budge him. His every living cell screamed at him to take the pressure off his shutting throat when a Gizoid skull emerged from the water.
" …Dolon?" the Consul breathed. He watched in disbelief as more limbs surfaced around them. Bent. Twisted. "No—"
Another skull tumbled past them, and he jerked away from it as though a rat had brushed against his leg.
"What is this?" Whipping around, he recoiled at the sight of Gizoid parts flooding in through the door. With an enraged cry he yanked back, exploding loam around them. "What is this?"
Shadow slapped his ringless hand to the wall, his heavy arm splashing through a curtain of water. Sucking in rapid gasps through the crevices of his teeth, he snatched for whatever air he could feed his starving lungs.
Don't give up, the strange voice urged. It was growing more difficult to obey its command, as his vision began to slide out of focus. Blinking, he willed himself to cling to the droplets pelting his flesh to keep his consciousness planted on this side of reality.
The metallic reek of sulfur pricked his nostrils. Such a potent odor made his mind flash back to Omega—
"Do you see this, you monster?" the Consul roared. "This is a graveyard!"
Before he could muster a retort, the Consul rammed his full weight down on the bar, thieving the last precious ounce of air in his lungs. Panic scrambled in his brain until his posture softened.
The rest of his body followed suit, eroding his will, his consciousness hovering at the dimmest edge.
Darkness welcomed him warmly.
He flipped the inert body and pried one of its eyelids open. Unfocused and glassy, the red iris slid.
Next he tested the carotid. Despite its erratic breath, a pulse beat clear and strong underneath his fingertips. No permanent damage. The mind within had quieted.
The Consul glowered at the creature before slinging its arm over his shoulder. Maddening thing refused to comply with even the simple task of remaining still. The body veered at a sharp angle off his damp armor, and he hitched it further up his back to keep it from falling.
"When you wake," he said, "you'd best thank the Doctor."
He took a few steps before staggering. Pain stabbed into his torso, and a heavy wave of weakness burdened him as the battle-rage flowed out of his veins.
That didn't seem to be the only thing flowing out of him: his gaze trailed back toward a thick green ribbon floating on the water. Broken in parts, its glow was bright enough for him to map out every place he'd sustained damage.
An icy pang of dread gripped his heart as he realized the converter in his back was still leaking energy. Fuel slithered between the rivets, dissolved into putrid bubbles the moment they touched the water around his ribcage.
"Thief," he hoarsed, his mouth twisting. His lips stuck together, salty with blood. "You leech my energy, and I am the villain?" His knees locked, and Shadow not only slid off again but collapsed like a ragdoll.
"Doctor," the Consul said. "I know you won't destroy this creature. But… "
He looked from the pitiful sight of his sentries and up toward the ruined boiler where he might have stood—or no longer—among the destroyed remains. Two memories conflicted in his mind. One was fresh, fleeting, the other so vivid and long-lingering it might as well have been etched into the grooves of his brain.
("Crush them."
A gravelly command, a pointed claw, a burning crimson third eye. Everything burned in greasy smoke. Fires never fully died; Gizoids, charred, heaped atop each other.
We will not speak of this, his people vowed; we will not speak of the demon who nearly ruined us.)
He was no longer a child cowering in fear of the Black Arms. Or anyone else, for that matter.
(fail the Doctor and he'll throw you away, just like your friend)
His gums throbbed around his bleeding tooth. Slowly, with great reluctance, he lifted the Black Arms creature onto his back.
The Doctor awaited him.
A man walked through the rubble.
At least, that was what it called itself.
They'd never seen one before. Perhaps the unfamiliarity was what made it so gruesome. The way it ensconced itself inside these ships and contraptions made them think of a viper nestled inside its coil. Whenever GUN struck at it, it would rip its fangs through their Gizoids.
Perhaps it was waiting to scavenge them next, said one of the boys. We should flee.
No, he said. The trembling and the sonorous metal banging suggested it was the one fighting their enemies above-ground. Maybe if they allied themselves with it, it would give them a better chance at survival.
It kicked aside a fallen GUN Beetle. It struck a prominent silhouette, as tall as their highest-ranking warrior, maybe taller. Certainly bigger. Fur sprouted beneath its nose. Its eyes shone two reflective lenses of glass. Its teeth wide and blunt as it bared them, catching glimpse of them.
He climbed over the crevasse.
"Zeno," Teukros whispered. "No!"
"Sonic!" the man thundered at him, lunging a step forward before the dust cleared. "Oh. Another one. Run along, pipsqueak!"
Bowing steeply, he offered the man the last leech blade they possessed, its dulled edges quivering heavily in his hands. His arms trembled, weak.
The man sniffed, enlarging its pink nostrils. "What do you want? Scram!"
"We," he said, "shall fight your enemies, Doctor."
They followed him to Metropolis, where the man considered his words for a long time. A day and a night passed before he called them again, saying he'd offer sanctuary in exchange for their materials, and pointed to their beaten armor. They had no more use for those broken relics, didn't they?
He was painfully aware he was not Nocturnus by his people's standards, and never could be. They had only looked at him and saw wasted potential; he learned to despise their pity as keenly as the taunts that insulted him outright. So he learned to gnash his teeth at the dissenters. He knew he was more than a child trapped inside a failed body, forced to watch years pass by like mere seconds ticking off a clock.
It was painful to think Nocturne would abandon her young. Perhaps that was why he convinced himself love of the ideal propelled him forward and not his anger toward the past. He was not invisible, defective, lacking utter worth, and he had to continually prove these facts simply to claim he had the right to exist. That the Nocturne he strove for was not dead, it very much lived. With the Doctor's help, they would achieve glory again.
His unconscious mind knew better. A man did not shelter a child without expecting an outcome. A man did not feed and clothe that child, did not foster that formless potential and shape it into something useful, unless he thought the dividend would eventually pay off.
The Doctor said he'd needed workers. But that wasn't enough to convince him of his usefulness, since the Doctor could simply have produced more robots if that were the case.
The Nocturnus weren't automatons, much as he'd tried to make them so. They were living, breathing beings, and used more resources than machines that could be turned off when they proved too cumbersome to deal with.
His confusion: Even if he slept on the floor, even if he obeyed every rule, overt and unspoken, even if he trained harder than the rest, even if he molded himself to the shadows and spoke as little as possible in the Doctor's presence—even if he paid his daily debts to the man who believed in his dream and who honed him into what he needed to become to achieve that dream—who did not brand him an eternal child as the others had—he still needed more tending to than a machine. He could not make himself convenient.
He pushed himself. Trained harder, fought harder, just for a glimpse of what he coveted most.
One day, miraculously, it happened.
"You're real full of yourself, boy. Now show me what that ego can do." The Doctor smiled, steepling his fingertips. "How good are you at collecting a bounty?"
"Dearly beloved," Eggman said as he stood with crossed arms, "we hardly knew ye."
Shadow sprawled before their feet, bathed in a warm circle of light. Like smoke from dry ice, the glow curled wisps around the edges of his motionless body.
Minutes passed during their wait for the light to report results. By now it should have morphed into a compendium of statistics and vitals analyses. He didn't know what was causing the delay, and each additional second spent waiting increased his anxiety. Had he miscalculated? Suppose the creature never roused?
The Doctor raked his fingers through his mustache. Spying a gray strand, he yanked it out and flicked it onto the creature's back. Not even the barest twitch responded.
"It must be unconscious," the Consul insisted for the third time. "My monitors were registering steady vitals not too long ago."
The tight frown never left the Doctor's expression as he slipped one toe under Shadow's hand and flicked it once. It smacked against the floor, its fingers loose.
"Doctor—" the Consul began, his throat closing a rigid lump as he thought back to the pool of drowned Gizoids. "It's destroyed our sentries."
"Of course he did."
"How long will it remain like this?"
"As long as we need him to," said the Doctor, "and aren't you glad?"
The Consul watched the door a long time after he disappeared beyond it. Soon thereafter the light receded, allowing two halves of a glass partition to rise from the metal floor and lock their subject into place with an icy hiss.
He wiped the frost gathered in thin sheets over the capsule and pressed it to his brow, letting the cold condensate dribble down. Not another fever, of all things. Not now.
"You're causing me more trouble than you're worth," he said. "I don't know why he bothers."
(Much like he bothers with you?)
"Don't turn me into the monster."
He felt the creature smile. "I wouldn't dare," he said in a mockery of his own lilt. "What you are is much worse, leaving my friends at the mercy of this place… "
"I couldn't care less about your foolish friends."
"That doesn't surprise me," the creature said. "It seems you don't have any left, either."
Dread slithered like venom into his gut. "Leave him out of this."
"Teukros, was it? He was your friend. Or at least, until you abandoned him."
Instinctively he smashed his knuckles against the glass. "Shut your stinking mouth," he cried. "The Doctor won't tolerate your insolence the way your creator did."
"He's still lying in that alley."
"Shut up—"
"That's not even the real tragedy. We could have avoided this if you'd just taken the time to think instead of letting the Doctor order you around."
"And yet despite that, you're the one locked up like the thoughtless specimen," the Consul snarled, his voice so thin and acidic it could have melt steel. "Odd how that works, isn't it?"
"I'd rather be captured than blind like you," the creature said. It clenched his fists, the left one quaking slightly as always.
"What's the matter, creature? Can't handle it?" Good to know that smug smile was fading. "Then shut your fool mouth about things you scarcely fathom. The moment these primitives made contact with that scum Black Doom was the moment this planet sealed its fate. I'm surprised Argus hasn't taken this entire forsaken rock yet."
The smile dropped. So did its eyelids.
He blinked then, and realized: he'd argued with an unconscious creature.
The test lab was a microcosm of the dispersion chamber nestled in Metropolis. In place of the Master Emerald presiding at its heart, however, a capsule stood in its center, around which encircled a ring of deactivated Gizoids.
He was running out of fuel. The problem had proven inordinate these past seven years, but with Sonic's interference accelerating his need, his supply had taken a significant nosedive. It would stand to reason that a speedy problem demanded an equally expedient solution.
Eggman folded his arms, rubbing his chin with idle strokes of his thumb, staring at Shadow through the observation window as preparations were made. The hedgehog dangled like a puppet from a nest of cables embedded inside the capsule, which rose to meet the ceiling with a clink.
Cables sprouted from its base; the attendant Nocturnus connected them into the buses of the awaiting Gizoids that sat with bowed heads.
A monitor blinked, drawing his attention for a moment. Shadow's baseline produced steady numbers. Everything was as ready as it would ever be.
"Start the test," he said.
Machinery whirred. Nothing earth-shattering happened at first, as he expected; Shadow slumbered, the Gizoids meditated cross-legged in their immobile ring. But then the terminals overseeing the process hummed much too loudly as their fans kicked in to ward off overexertion.
They gave way to a piercing whine. Activated, the glow behind the eyes of the decommissioned Gizoids pulsed twice, in tandem, snuffing out his own short-lived excitement as a scorch erupted from one of them.
The scene was like a dozen Roman candles going off at once. One spark lit and burst, causing a chain reaction of embers to ignite, popping off dozens more. Error messages blazed; the fans pumped double-time to cool the smoke that whirled from the equipment.
Much to his bewilderment, one Gizoid stood and flew toward him, snapping the cables from its back, fist cocked as if to smash out the window.
Its companions followed suit, twitching as if they no longer knew what their limbs were for. The more they tugged at each other's cables, the less they wanted to be bound to their new power source. They thrashed and kicked the Nocturnus that attempted to subdue them.
He banged his fists on the console. Shadow! Argh, that devil must have somehow implanted the thought of rebellion into their heads!
He didn't know why he thought this, as it had no basis in logic or reason, but Eggman barreled toward the main monitor nonetheless, his puzzlement increasing in leaps and bounds as he saw the waves spiking.
"Suspend the test!" He brought his hand slamming down on the deactivation button. "Suspend the test!"
Trying not to envision the worst case scenario, he drummed his fingers in a testy rhythm on the control panel. The equipment wound down and the smoke cleared. Something was wrong here, he thought, very, very wrong.
He paused the feed and growled a curse as he swiped through the results of the past few minutes; Shadow's theta waves produced unusually strong patterns, as if he were caught in a turbulent dream, instead of registering the relaxed hills of data a deep state of unconsciousness typically provided.
Furthermore, he'd programmed the dispersion to convert the raw Chaos power embedded in Shadow's tissue to electricity once his brain waves reached theta stage. In doing so, he'd committed a fatal mistake: assuming the little rat's brain waves would have proven identical in function to those of a human's. Hippocampal theta rhythms were specific to animals, while humans' cortical rhythms oscillated at far softer frequencies.
The implications of such an innocuous mix-up hit him like a bullet train, freezing his fingers mid-drum. These blaring error screens? These Gizoids, singed and broken? No wonder everything lay in shambles; he'd instructed the program to activate the process upon receiving signals it couldn't define.
Pivoting on his heel, Eggman cycled through his options.
Couldn't extract Shadow from the capsule. Nor could he tinker inside his mind, overwriting his grandfather's programming like he'd attempted in the past. He was loath to mess with that intricate programming, not out of fear of ruining something, but because his efforts would get flushed down the drain if his interference triggered some unseen failsafe and roused him.
The most current readings indicated Shadow had just entered another REM cycle. That part didn't concern him, since the cycle would pass quickly enough if he waited a few more minutes. The real problem he faced was that it would take him a huge chunk of time to reset the equipment to the exact parameters he wanted. By then the ideal window of brain activity for which he could siphon the energy directly from Shadow's body without resistance, conscious or otherwise, would have long since passed him by.
He glared at Shadow. Of course he'd have snoozed through the breakdown. He slept, suspended, a pillar of calm amidst the tumult.
Nocturnus fled this way and that, putting out fires that jetted out from cracks in the walls. His expression retained a blank, mask-like quality, quite peaceful for hosting such strong neuro-oscillatory activity. His vulnerability suggested innocence, but the Gizoids smoking to crisps attested that, even asleep, Shadow proved far from docile. Eggman knew how much more lethal giving his grandfather's creation a single waking blink would be.
He pinched his lips into a thin, bloodless line. If he could have his way, Shadow would only be so lucky. As it stood, pragmatism demanded he steer clear from that particular thought.
He supposed he could throw Shadow into the flash-freeze for an hour or two… But what good would it do if the program refused to accept his readings in the first place? Cryostasis wouldn't guarantee his mind would cease its noisy dreaming, anyway, so the point became doubly moot.
I've got to reprogram all of these stinking things, when what I really need is a better conduit.
He had to admit, he thought as he paced with his arms behind his back, striding through a puffing spout a Nocturnus fired at a flame, his pool of candidates were depressingly low. With two Chaos Emeralds occupying the Phantom and the evaporation from Angel Island draining the last of his reserves, he could hardly maintain a steady equilibrium. But he had to find someone to power his machines until he gathered all seven Emeralds. If Shadow failed, he'd simply have to use another conduit instead.
Time to wake a certain blue thorn in his side.
Murmurs radiate through the walls.
"More eavesdropping, Shadow?" The Professor chuckles at a clipped pace, walking swiftly, as he must, to reach the next experiment taking up his time. "Ah, youth. I can barely make out the words they bark into this ear, and here you are listening through walls."
He doesn't mean to, but their whispers itch at the soft insides of his ears until he cannot help but listen. Must be one of the extraordinary things he wishes wouldn't separate him from the humans.
Nonetheless, he must get to the heart of the matter, so he grips the Professor's hand inside his gloved one and squeezes it once, a gesture which seldom fails to grab his attention. "Professor, is it true? The prototype has grown unstable." He pauses. "They say there will be soldiers soon."
"Oh," he breathes. "Oh, Shadow, no… Don't startle an old man like that… "
He grips his hand tighter. "Will they… "
"Do you know what they're after? What it is they truly want?"
"Tell me."
"War. A war to put money in their banks and fuel their greed."
Gerald's hand at last slips away, and Shadow is left to follow his lab coat as it sways against the chilled, sterile gusts from the contaminant filters embedded in the floor panels. His fur, though thick, bristles.
His gaze wanders toward the eternally-sealed door of weapons testing. He catches a glimpse of the engineers installing the Emerald receptacle into the Eclipse Cannon, fitting the plates to the weapon's lithe frame. He remembers the Professor saying once that he keeps these weapons not for the purpose of maiming and wounding others, but as reminders of mankind's living duties.
"Why must they fight?" he asks.
"That I cannot answer, sadly. I regret to say we may never know the reason for all the bitterness and suffering on that little blue planet. Perhaps it is not our place to know." A mild smile playing on his lips, Gerald gives his head an affectionate pat. "But if there is a bright spot in all of this, my son, let your light be the one to guide them."
This answer didn't sate him at all; even more questions bubbled on his lips. "Professor," he said. "I've made so many mistakes. I don't know how I can fix them."
"Shadow, heed me. Don't let my words be in vain."
"I… would never… "
"You must do what is right."
"What is right," he repeated blankly. A fat, glistening bead of perspiration slid down his brow, stinging his cornea.
"You will not fail me."
"I will not fail you."
"You will carry out my task."
Shadow forced his eyes open.
"And," he said sharply, "Professor, what would that be?"
He whirled around. The apparition bearing the Professor's visage vanished as he broke away from it, insubstantial as mist.
A single whisper touched his mind, faint.
(Shadow)
"Who's there?" he asked, to no reply. He blinked, and the ARK's metal peeled away to sandstone. Moss trickled though the pristine metal, invading vine and rune-carved stone through the windows. Before him the entire landscape shifted, expanding as if it heaved in a breath, the darkness of outer space softening into a hazy sunset where he stood at the entrance to a temple.
The door that had been weapons R&D was now covered by a gossamer veil. He parted it, entering a dim cloister where Shade knelt, examining pieces of a burned tapestry while her lord lit candles before a small altar. Bowls of fragrant oil plumed smoke through a hole in the ceiling, which Ix encouraged to waft upwards with an uncharacteristic gentleness. If Shadow didn't know any better, he'd have said he was praying.
Neither saw him. He was less negligible to them than the flickering of the long candles surrounding Ix's throne.
"I cannot tell what this is, my lord."
"Childishness is what it was," Ix scoffed, blew out the flame he cupped. "Now they're spreading this ridiculous prophecy that a god of wind will battle a demon for the Emeralds."
Shade inspected the cloth once more. From behind her shoulder, Shadow made out the barest imprint of a design: green and gold.
"You did not have to burn it, my lord."
"No," he said. "Likewise, Shade, we cannot let them keep their silly delusions if they're ever to return to the tribe."
Shade looked up as she rose. "It was a tapestry," she whispered, her fist clenched around the singed cloth. "Tell me you left their temples alone."
The candles flickered. Her fists trembled as their silence dragged on.
When he reached over to snuff more candles, she whipped the cloth at his feet and stormed toward him. "Damn you, you arrogant—!"
He intercepted the fist she hurtled toward his chest, gripping her wrist until her fingers uncurled of their own accord. "I did not relish in the destruction," he said, his voice a softer register that slackened her tense shoulders a degree, "but Pachacamac is stealing our people with these superstitious lies. I cannot help but fear for our future should we let him continue. If I must ruin a few of his temples to burn away his blindness, then that is what I must do."
"Leave them alone," she said. "Please. It has to end."
"Argus gave us the strength to quell Black Doom. He will give us the strength to make them see reason."
She shoved him aside, abandoning him to bolt through the veil.
Shadow followed her down the steps, not sparing a single backwards glance for the would-be despot. What scarce empathy he might have had for Ix had vanished long ago. He'd heard this particular song-and-dance before from the Doctor, disguising personal ambition as fair intentions, enough times to avoid wasting his time with the lost cause. And even though he knew he couldn't comfort Shade's dream self in any way, he felt compelled to see the vision through to its end.
A child waited for her at the temple base, solemn as he cradled her helm. As she barreled past, he silently held it out for her. Shaking her head, she lifted him over her shoulder and carried him down the path toward the citadel, though the child stared at him from over her shoulder.
Wordlessly, he pointed at the sky behind the temple, at a spit of lightning and thunder.
Mortal fear swarmed her as the temple was sucked into a bright, writhing void; its cathedral roof broke off and floated an impossible height before dissipating in a cloud of ionized smoke.
She broke into a dead run as the ground split at her heels, floes and homes and trees and screaming citizens hurtling into the vacuum above. The healthy, robust rivers feeding the city's generators evaporated into mist. Tendrils burst from the ground, enveloping Nocturne, and she hugged the child close as the Twilight Cage closed in on them—
Something familiar resided in the child's face.
(Shadow.)
No… This voice addressing him no longer belonged to Shade's memories. Everything paled, slowed. He understood what the faceless presence wearing this mask was; Knuckles had mentioned a historian called Nestor giving the phenomenon a name.
"Argus."
The Consul's face hardened. (Do not speak my name with such irreverence. They must be punished, Shadow.)
This memory faded as well, until all that remained was the voice. The very same that had been planting white noise in his mind since the moment he awoke in Metropolis.
As soon as he realized this, his body wracked with pins and needles, doubling him over. Something was accelerating the loss of his Chaos energy, and as one sees through a murky well, he glimpsed a lab, the Doctor's swimming outline.
Fire. Gizoids in a ring around him, burning about him, heaped in effigy and drowned in the waste disposal.
Shadow snapped his head toward where he thought Argus would best hear him. "No one tells me what to do, least of all some coward who hides inside someone else's memories. Now get out of my head, or I'll force you out."
You misunderstand, sorely, Argus said, in a voice that sounded like a spiteful imitation of his own. I am not above wielding you as my instrument. Consider it a mercy I've let you retain your free will thus far, but that will not always be the case. My power will return, and you will grant me my wish.
Shadow growled. "I'm no one's genie."
You are the one who wields the power to subdue them, return them to me. Even weakened and caged like this, I can make your worst nightmares come true. You'll comply if you do not want to suffer further. It is only right they receive justice.
"Seems you and I have—vastly different interpretations of the concept," Shadow grit through his teeth. "Maybe I could—persuade you—with a nightmare of your own?"
A flaming white ring of light seared his vision, and as he instinctively pulled away he glimpsed through the corner of his eye that it engulfed his wrist, a hungry blaze seeking more. He—it—needed more power.
Light answered the summons, swam toward the fireball in wisps and streams, growing the glow until he could hardly see the barest outline of his hand.
(my will, they've escaped my will)
The glow pulsed hard. A shooting pang ripped through his body. For the next few seconds he hovered in limbo, not certain of his standing within either dream or reality, until Argus deposited him in the tangle of a ruined lab, error messages blazing in complete silence.
The Doctor passed by the observation window, followed by several Nocturnus. At their head walked—or more accurately, trudged—the Consul, trailing the Doctor's heels closely.
I wonder what you would say if you knew I saw those memories; is that why you despise me, because you fear my discovering them?
No one knew he'd roused, so he had to capitalize on the time he'd been afforded to seize this chance at escape. He bucked his mandibles, pulling on his wrists with an extended grunt from the strain. Damned things refused to come off.
Then he recalled the light and its immense heat. If he extended his senses, he could trace the intricate cables binding him to this capsule, all the way back to the computers and networks the Doctor needed to run his city. Information flowed constant streams from one end to another, much like fuel, blood, power. A single blockage would be all it would take to set him free and allow him to slip through the gaps.
Relaxing his muscles, he probed the outflow of light, seeking where it ebbed at its weakest point. There he willed the obdurate energy in his ringless hand to pinch the connection closed, staunch the current of information being fed to the mainframe.
The energy within his ringless hand heated the steel of his binder to a malleable putty which he easily shook with a firm lunge of the wrist. Once both mandibles released him, he plucked the electrodes off his head and made quick work of disentangling himself from the wires holding him in place.
A swift snap-kick ejected the cover plate, leaving the floor to shatter it to bits. The sheltering bubble the capsule had provided him burst, leaving the room's chaos to assault his senses. Klaxons screeched while the sizzle of electric fires flooded his nose.
Clapping hands over his ears, Shadow tried to focus on possible escape routes. Gizoids lay scattered in various states of destruction, their charred, bent bodies reminding him keenly of Omega and Gemerl. He had to get out of here, help them. Where to start?
Amidst the clatter and shriek he caught the hum of a ventilation system. He picked a jagged path across the mess of Gizoid parts and punted his shoulder against the crash door at the lab's rear, staggering into an unused electrical closet. The ventilation's hum grew into a discernible rumble, its tinny echo a hollow warble.
Following it to freedom would have to do. Yanking off the grated cover, he stowed inside the vent, and shimmied halfway through the cool, dark passage when a Nocturnus raised the alarm. The Doctor rushed back, barking commands to anyone who'd listen.
"Argh, can't anything go right? Lock down the immediate vicinity! I'll deal with him myself!"
The underground hangar stretched for miles. Structured like a parking garage, layers of reinforced concrete plummeted an impressive number of stories. Its upper levels housed decommissioned vehicles and his myriad works-in-progress, the likes of which aligned neatly in their designated spaces. As these were used quite often, sconces lit them well.
The further one descended, the less it adhered to such order. The light grew feeble, watery, until it reached nothing in the murky bottom. At the lowest level where natural rock warped the girders, he'd left an empty chasm, so spacious you could stand in the thin, frigid air and hear the insistent beat of your own heart.
Amplified by his sensitive radar, he indeed heard one. A sharp pulse pumped spikes on his monitor. His vitals a novel where at his leisure he could read every breath that scraped from his lips.
The Phantom's grin flashed.
"Shadow! A little birdie told me you're trying to escape."
Light flooded the hangar, killing Shadow's hope of melting away into the darkness. He smiled as the hedgehog winced from the harsh dazzle, and urged the Phantom into an idle stroll. Trailing a finger along the quarry wall, its scrape shivered along the stone.
"Keep away from me."
That gave him a good chuckle. "I hardly believe you're in any position to tell me what to do." As he approached, the rasping grew into a long, anguished whine, so close to a screech it forced Shadow to muffle his ears. "Oh, I'm sorry, is this too much for you? Why don't you take a rest?"
No sooner had he said those words had he squeezed Shadow inside his grip and chucked him across the hangar. The little devil was faster than he accounted for, and as soon as he skidded onto the concrete floor he sprang to his feet.
"Spear!"
Eggman stopped the bolt that shot toward him with a downward chop, its fallen swirls about as effective as sand hurled in his face. A massive finger waved admonition. "Ah-ah, boy! Your parlor tricks won't impress this customer anymore!"
He darted into the darkness, irritating him a little. The attempt to boil his guinea pig's blood failed, as the taunt crumbled on his reticence. Shadow didn't approach battle to prove his ego the way Sonic did—just to win and clear another hurdle.
"Chaos Control!"
A ragged flash manifested around him, though this time it lingered a tick longer than usual and smashed a large, lumbering projectile toward the cockpit. It hit the viewing port at an astonishing speed and scrambled his feeds a split second before clattering to the ground; a piece of catwalk? From where?
More flashes ignited the darkness. Fireworks burst down, battering the mech under a storm of Chaos energy and scrap metal. Minor though the damage was as shards bounced harmlessly off the fuselage, the tactic ground him to a halt, forcing him to block impromptu missiles rather than generate any proper offense.
He smacked away a boiler and crushed the pile of fallen metal under his foot.
"Playtime is over, Shadow!"
Twin beams blasted up the concrete wall behind his opponent, causing the dust to erupt into veils of obscuring smoke. The rock behind it crumbled like ash. At this point he didn't quite care if the entire quarry imploded and swept them out in a massive rockslide, so long as he carried back his quarry limp in his teeth.
Neither did he care how long such a feat would take. This was a struggle of attrition, and he was so certain Shadow had the losing hand from having his energy drained to near-nothing that he felt he could afford the collateral damage. Until then, he'd have to keep flushing the cretin out until he decided to engage.
"Tell me what you intend to do with Argus."
The quiet voice behind him impelled Eggman to twist the mech's torso around.
Shadow stood, green light balled in his fists. The air surrounding him swirled faint distortions.
Thief.
Thief.
"It wasn't enough that you conquered this world." Snapping his other inhibitor back on, he walked toward the Phantom until he stopped at the base of its ankle. "Now you're using the Nocturnus to reopen the rift between this planet and the Twilight Cage."
Eggman sniffed. Should have known that high-handed octopus would cause him trouble. "So it blabbed," he said, "spare me the lecture. I fail to see how that's any different from using Gemerl to reactivate Omega, or how you played poor Vanilla for a sucker."
Shadow bristled, his curling fingers prickling with rising energy.
"Tell me, Doctor."
"Or else what?"
He sucked in a breath and raised his fist. "Chaos—!"
His command cut short at being kicked across the hangar.
Swiping his palm along the ceiling panel, the doctor switched from radar to thermal imaging. The viewing port's outlines melted away to a single burst of red on a gray field, which, if its shifting, blurring edges were any indication of Shadow's current location, had decided to return of its own volition and was walking slowly toward him. Sizing him up. Testing him.
Flicking the cap off the missile launch button, he wheeled the reticles into alignment.
" …You don't know whether this plan of yours will work." The blot's leisurely pace quickened into a sprint before finally breaking out into a fluid glide. "That's why you're fighting so hard."
Fired at nothing until the launchers wheezed smoke.
"I won't let you use them."
Brave of him to play hero. He drew up the chaingun handles at his sides, practically feeling the kickback tremble his wrists as their automatic rounds devoured concrete, his pelting of bullets just one maddening step behind that red blot.
Despite wasting more ammunition than he should firing at a practical ghost, he knew enough to retract the turrets before they clicked empty.
"Quit running and face me, you coward!"
Shadow swerved around. "As you wish."
He ripped through the Phantom's knee. The joint cracked at his piercing dash, and a horrible grinding shrill filled his ears as the hydraulic rivets gasped from the exertion of regaining its balance. Without the joint working to securely hold the machine's weight, the right leg died, its internal circuitry whirring down to a close, the failing gears in its knee dropping its massive foot.
He slid back into place within the cockpit, now tilted from a shifted center of gravity. From his lush pilot's chair Eggman ground his teeth so hard it wasn't entirely unbelievable they would crack from the strain. His jaws clenched as he heard that small huff of air which always preceded that insolent smirk.
"Problems, Doctor?"
No more games.
He phased out before Shadow repeated his attack on the other knee, caught him midair and punted him into the ground, squeezing the Phantom's fingers around his struggling body to prevent his escape.
Metal resisted his efforts to buck it, scrunching ever tighter. What would it take? What would it take to make these brats understand they were never getting their precious world back?
"Give up," Eggman snarled, wrenching down with even more force. "You crawl in here, expecting to order me around, and now you believe you'll go blabbing my plans to everyone?Just who do you think you are?"
"Blast!"
An explosion unleashed a blinding inferno that only his thick-paneled viewing port shielded him from. Reeling, he threw a forearm over his eyes to protect them, and as the glow washed smoky residue over his windows, wondered if this time Shadow's over reliance on his Chaos powers had backfired and engulfed him instead. What sublime irony it would have been if it had, though he'd been burned enough times to regard that notion with a healthy dose of skepticism.
He had ample reason to doubt his luck; a sharp torrent of sparks drew his attention toward the Phantom's wrist. With an infuriated shout he realized Shadow was freely walking toward him again because he had blown the machine's entire left hand off the stump.
"You know who," he said. "I am Shadow the Hedgehog, immortal mind and body sworn to protect this planet my creator so beloved. The better question would be you, Doctor, who'd dare stand in my way: who the hell are you?"
Whatever scrap of civility Eggman might have retained in this battle now disintegrated. Snatching the vermin inside his Phantom's surviving hand, he lashed its electric chain and pummeled him into the ground, over and over, until the concrete caved in and chunks leapt up from impact.
Shadow still bucked him, still tried to resist. Why, when he knew this world already belonged to him? Why couldn't he accept the inevitable and lie down?
(why doesn't he surrender, WHY DOES NO ONE EVER SURRENDER)
His severed wrist flickered discharge. Warning lights shaded blood-crimson activated inside the cockpit. Seconds later their beeping heralded a calm female voice, which announced repeatedly, her tone a little too pleasant for the situation at hand: Primary engine damage critical.
He didn't have time to respond, however. A heavy blow sidelined the mech as the trapped Shadow slammed himself into the hull in a desperate lunge to free his binds, throwing everything askew. Another wayward knock spiderwebbed the viewing port, smashing his own electrified fist in his face, hissing voltage and splintering material that wasn't supposed to be splintered.
Upon the third blow the compromised glass shattered, bits stinging him as they rained down. Eggman threw up his hands to shield himself from the smoke the console spat at him.
Primary engine damage criti—
"Shut up!" he screamed, slamming the controls like a deranged pianist pounding keys in a fit of madness. "Egg Phantom, fold in the rotors and divert all remaining power to the lightning cannon!"
The fingers of his remaining hand stiffened, no longer responsive. Slipping from their grasp, Shadow landed in a kneel and released a taut cry of pain as his right leg buckled underneath him. No broken bone showed, though he clutched his ankle, attempting to spur it back into motion. Sprained muscle, perhaps. Eggman chose not to dwell on specifics as he seized the opportunity to close in on him.
He deployed the gravity forcefield. Giving the virtual slider a firm upward sweep, he cranked the gravity to the highest setting its parameters would allow, paralyzing Shadow as the thick, flurried aura pinned him to the ground. The grasping breaths he took became even more labored as he struggled just to lift his head, which meant he was finding it increasingly difficult to breathe from this immense G-force crushing down on his every inch. Enough to hammer the point home, but not enough to collapse his lungs. Not yet. He needed to be taught one more lesson.
The doctor's computer accepted his command, instantly killing power to the primary engine. Radiant fuel fled the Phantom's outlets and even washed out the backlights of his monitors as it circulated toward the secondary. The arms receded into the main body, and its crescent-shaped rotors tucked into the abdomen, where they snapped together to form a full circle which produced an enormous fan.
As the secondary engine gained power, the fan accelerated, its razor-sharp blades bleeding together. The Phantom's rib plates slid back to open a receptacle where two Emeralds glinted behind the fan, their sockets blue and violet. Coupled with the chopping of the engine blades, they sparked a minuscule white ember that soon burst into full-blown conflagration.
The 'lightning cannon' was a misnomer, as it only generated electricity for his auxiliary weapons but did not deploy any itself. What churned within its powerful generator was plasma, so pure it corked lightning in a bottle. He had watched it melt GUN walkers to formless goo beneath layers of protective glass that sizzled at the touch. Such a weapon could gut buildings and lay them bare.
It would also deplete every ounce of energy left in his overtaxed primary engine. Painful experience had taught him that relying on the secondary to prevent a lockup would result in nothing but grief, but if Shadow had simply relented, he wouldn't have had to drag it down to this. He wanted the games to end, and he wanted them ended now.
The lightning cannon stormed a furious quasar, spitting out flames from its receptacle. The heat burned so intensely its scorching gale rippled Shadow's outline, flaking cinders through his quills. How little he could budge now, his expression maintaining an eerie calm in the midst of the inferno. Now there was nowhere else to run. Nowhere else to hide. Come and face me.
His trigger finger twitched. A mere button press was now all it would take to raze him to an insignificant scorch mark.
"Do me a favor, Shadow. Say hello to Grandfather for me."
He pressed the button.
Something failed. A dying internal mechanism slowed the fan blades. The wrathful glow faded, sucked back into its fiery receptacle.
The hot breeze stopped caressing him, and Shadow's blurring form sharpened into relief. As he felt hell's oppressive mouth close its jaws, he exhaled a single tattered sigh, finally able to breathe in the protecting darkness.
A half-mad scream strangled its way free from Eggman's throat. He smashed the button, crushing it impotently under his fist when it became clear that Shadow, infuriatingly, remained. By the time the various error messages became salient from the hard pulse in his veins, they shrieked alive, swarming him like a disturbed nest of bees. He jostled the controls, coughed out the smoke and the mucus building in his throat. Raged at them as they failed to respond and the forcefield released its hold on his target. This can't be happening—not now—
A beam flickered behind the Phantom.
With excruciating languor Shadow pushed himself up, slaking off the ash and dust coating him. Gingerly wiping a streak of blood from a corner of his mouth, he gazed toward it in full silence, heedless of Eggman's unhinged stream of threats.
Hobbling to a stand, he limped toward the light.
"Where do you think you're going? This isn't over! THIS ISN'T OVER!"
His gait left him dragging his hurt leg behind him, cutting a trail through the soot-encrusted floor. Shadow used the wall for a crutch and ignored his diatribe. The Doctor could do nothing now but sit in his smoking cradle and throw his tantrum as though he belonged in one.
Shadow deigned brief askance over his bruised shoulder toward the ranting madman. His voice trickled a raw whisper. "Goodbye, Doctor."
Eggman sat inside the Phantom, fuming while various messages flashed before him. Damage reports calculated the machine had suffered an approximate sixty percent lockup throughout all limbs. Three more joint failures and he'd have repeated the GUN fiasco.
His nostrils pulsed, hissing out air. Hot blood trickled a thick churn up his neck.
He entered a command to relax the Phantom's grip. The rivets emitted a shrill, rusty whine as the first finger struggled to pry itself loose. The noise made him grind his teeth tighter; sound was ungodly, though sadly not an unfamiliar one. He could almost feel their arthritic creak as keenly as his own.
"They think they're so clever," he growled under his breath. Cranking back a gear, he let steam purl from the open cockpit.
Someone was going to pay.