I do not own sonic the hedgehog or any of the characters from the games, movies or comics but I do own this story and the other characters, I hope you enjoy it.
Things Only Whispered In The Shadows
Ch7. Surprises.
Maxis was supposed to be here by now.
I paced by the entrance to the temple, anxious and worried at the same time. Anxious about what the old fox would have to say and worried that it was taking him so long. I now had a gleaming new pair of blades strapped upside down on my back. As peculiar as it looked it was a heck of a lot easier to unsnap them from the sheath and let them drop out than try to pull them over my shoulders in the heat of battle, now they just served as a distraction for my fidgiting hands. Talon still gave me grief about it, he had no problems hefting his two handed monstrosity over his shoulder, and Fel didn't see why we bothered if we had emeralds.
Of all the things I had learned about the chaos emerald while waiting to see if I even got to keep it, the best part? Learning that I didn't need it as much as I thought I did. I obviously couldn't teleport without it, but I found I could manipulate the things around me to some extent. Not enough to fight with yet but enough to entertain myself for now.
"You know, if you keep pacing like that you'll wear a rut in the floor." Fels lazy comment was a clear indication of just how board the orange cat was.
Talon looked just as board, chilling on one of the low hanging rafters, looking at the ceiling and close to dozing off.
"Don't sweat it sis. If anything he will be more thrilled to hear that we have one of the real emeralds, sure he may be a little disappointed you didn't tell us a couple years ago. But hey, we got two of the fragments to boot."
I didn't know if he was trying to cheer me up or trying to make me worry more. I gave a loud sigh and stopped pacing, settling for examining the yellow gem. "I'm more worried about how long it's taking the old fox to get here. He's rarely late for anything."
"He probably found something fascinating on the way here and lost track of time." Fel rolled his eyes and made an elaborate gesture at the word fascinating.
Fel had a point, Maxis did have a habit of losing track of time when he found something interesting. Even so, he was more than a day late, he wasn't that bad at keeping track of time was he? I started pacing again. "Still I can't help but worry."
"So who wants to bet how much junk he's bringing back this time?" I rolled my eyes so he looked up at Talon but got no answer. "Dude?" We could hear soft snoring coming from above now. I sputtered out a laugh that I couldn't contain. Fel's mouth was hanging open and indignation slowly crept onto his face. "Dude!"
Talon slept soundly through the outburst and the following tantrum as Fel attempted to get the attention of the sleeping green hedgehog. My ear twitched at a small clatter just outside. Just over the last steps the old fox hauled something on a sled. Why he had a sled on the top of a mountain in the middle of the summer was beyond me, so I had to find out. I nudged Fel and headed out to greet Maxis without looking away from the sled.
Curiosity had always been a weakness of mine, and now everything I had been worrying over or hoping for had disappeared from my mind.
Maxis effortlessly pulled the makeshift, roped together branch sled across the short expanse between the top of the stairs and the front entrance. He stopped when I ignored his weary greeting and walked around him to see the contents of the sled. I understood immediately why it had taken him an extra day to get here. On the sled lie the unconscious form of a girl, her pale bluish white fur was stained with dirt and probably blood and her cloths were in ruins. She couldn't have been much older than talon, if not a little younger. Fel was beside me in moments after I had stopped to stare, he stopped to do the same. Talon followed, rubbing the short nap from his eyes and waves to the old grey fox. "What 'cha looknin' at?" still not fully awake Talon stretched his arms and stopped dead in his tracks, eyes glued to the young woman.
She groaned and began to stir, then her dark eyes fluttered open. "Where are we? Ow." She put one delicate hand on her head and winced. As far as social graces went we were all a bit lacking but then again how do you greet someone in her situation properly?
Luckily Maxis saved us from an embarrassing introduction. "This is the place I told you about my dear, this is the temple I call home, and these are my friends Fel, Talon, and Whisper." he pointed to each of us in turn and her gaze followed and lingered on me when there was no one left to introduce. I couldn't say for sure but for a moment I could have sworn that her midnight blue eyes grew a shade darker, if that were even possible, as they rested on me but it was gone in an instant.
None of us knew what to say, except Fel "What the hell happened to you?" My jaw dropped at how clueless he could be at times.
I was waiting for Talons reaction when I noticed he was still staring at her the same way he had been before she woke up. I stepped in front of him and waved my hand in front of his face. "Hellooo, anyone home? Reality to Talon." He snapped out of it and blushed nearly turning from a green hedgehog to a red one. I cocked an eyebrow at that. I had never, and I mean never seen him act like this before. "Welcome back oh fearless leader." he pointedly ignored me and walked past me.
He knelt down beside the sled, "Can you stand?" she nodded slowly her gaze shifting between me and Talon. "Good, here I'll help you to a spare room, we can get you fixed up in there." he offered a hand that she took gratefully but with a hint of caution and curiosity on her face. "So we never got your name." he smiled not looking away for more than a few seconds at a time.
It was her turn to blush, "Rune." she looked away then, avoiding any further eye contact with any of us. I grinned to myself as the others followed the two hedgehogs through the doorway. This was going to be fun.
It was late afternoon by the time anyone even remembered that we hadn't told Maxis about the real emerald. Everyone was so focused on our new visitor that it hadn't even crossed our minds. Fel was the one to blurt it our first. "Oh yeah! Maxis! You'll never believe what Whisper got a hold of." This got everyone's immediate attention.
"We did forget about that didn't we." Talon looked thoughtful for a moment then expectant. I wasn't going to weasel my way out of this one. I rubbed the back of my neck with my hand whilst trying to look calm, and failed miserably.
"Oh is that so? What did you find?" Straight to the point then. I couldn't find the words to tell him what I had found without making it sound like I had been hiding our best chance of actually winning against Salem, so I set the emerald down on the table and Talon catching on did the same. Maxis was confused at first, and when Talon set his yellow emerald next to mine he looked even more confused. When it finally dawned on him that there were two yellow emeralds in front of him of different sizes, the confusion gave way to astonishment. He sat down heavily in his chair, not daring to believe at first. He slowly picked each emerald up in his hands, disbelief outweighed by the sudden tears that sprung forth unchecked. "How." almost inaudible he looked up. "How did you get this? It shouldn't be possible, but here before me... how..." I didn't want to sully the moment by telling him how long I had it but the secret was weighing on me.
"I'm not entirely sure how but," I took a deep breath, time to get it over with. "I found it in a dream a year after we started training. I thought it was just a strange dream at first but then I found this in my room that night. It's also where I got the golden ring." I lifted my arm up weakly, showing the gold ring around my wrist. There was a long silence before any one spoke.
"So, what are those exactly?" I had forgotten Rune was in the room with us. "I mean obviously they are some big deal and if you don't want to tell me that's fine." that was the most I had ever heard her say. Then again I had only known her for a few hours. "But it would be nice not being left in the dark." I almost laughed at the last part. Yes indeed it would be nice to not be left in the dark, but that seemed to be the only place we were lately was in the dark.
Maxis had regained enough composure to answer her. "That's right you don't know about them yet. These are Fragment emeralds," he set his emerald next to Talons and they shined a little brighter. "There are seven of them altogether, each a different color, each with the same power. Together they have the power to help defeat Salem and bring peace to this world or, in the wrong hands, help him destroy what's left of it." She looked thoughtful, he continued. "This," gesturing to the larger yellow gem, "is a Chaos emerald. One of the original emeralds that separated this world from Mobius four hundred years ago. When this world and Mobius separated the fragment emeralds separated from the original seven Chaos emeralds and became a part of this world while the chaos emeralds stayed on Mobius." I had never heard this version of the story before and now he had us all mesmerized by the story. "No one knows why exactly the worlds were split in two, only that one day when the emeralds became one again that so too would the worlds become one. In order to bring the worlds back together again you need emboth/em sets of emeralds. Luckily only one set is needed to travel between the worlds."
"Wait, so what you're saying is that you need all seven of the emeralds to travel between worlds?" Fel was the first to catch the irregularities as always, and Maxis nodded. "So then how did Whisper do it?" again the old fox was unusually silent and only shook his head, looking back to the impossible emerald sitting before them.
I went to sleep that night knowing that there was one more person who knew our secrets and that there was yet another mystery laid out before us. I drifted off thinking of that other place, Mobius. A strange name but somehow familiar. Like an old friend that you had forgotten you once knew. It didn't take long to find myself dreaming about it again. Only this time it seemed less real.
I was on the beach again with a light house overlooking the hill/cliff I had fallen from. It was day this time and just as beautiful as it was that night. The water shimmered in the golden sun's rays while the waves lapped at the sand. I walked along the beach away from the light house a ways until I almost lost sight of it before finding myself in front of some sort of resort.
It looked like it had been slightly scorched by some sort of small fire on one side but otherwise the one story grass roofed, stone building was in pristine condition. It had an elaborate entrance lined with tacky art, probably to attract people to stay there. I didn't understand why anyone would want to stay somewhere so unguarded and shoddily built. One well-placed attack from a monster would send this place sky high.
I walked past it and noticed chairs lined up on the hot sand, some with umbrellas and others without. The people here were lounging about in the sun or splashing about in the shallows. I couldn't wrap my head around how oblivious to potential danger they all seemed and how happy they all were about it.
I almost ran into someone on their way out of what I could only assume was a bathroom by the way it smelled. "Sorry." but he ignored me with a look of disgust on his face, from the restroom I guessed, he didn't have to be so rude.
I walked around a while longer before I came upon some kids building a small castle out of sand.
What I would have given to have that kind of childhood, that kind of carefree joy.
They were interrupted by an older boy who ran through their castle with a gleeful yell as his friends followed him, destroying anything he left behind. I chased after them intending to chew them out for making the little kids cry, "Hey you three!" only to be ignored yet again. I reached to grab the first boy by his shirt only to find my hand passed straight through him.
I stopped dead in my tracks and looked at my hand, it looked solid enough. I swallowed and walked over to one of the umbrella chairs and reached for the arm to lean on. It was solid. I bent down to kneel on the sand to find its gritty texture firmly beneath me, but when I went to scoop some of it up and run it through my fingers, they ran through it like they had the kid. That would explain a few things. I pushed the panic back down my throat with a swallow and took a long, deep breath. So I was invisible, I could deal with that, I couldn't influence the things around me instead I would just pass right through them. I swallowed again at the thought of slipping through the ground into darkness. It didn't appear as if that was likely to happen though seen as how it hadn't happened yet. I only passed through things that I tried to move, so as long as I don't try to dig any holes with my entire body I should be fine, or I hoped so anyway.
My ears twitched at the sound of panicked shouts in the distance. I spun around to meet a foe that probably couldn't see or hear me and that I couldn't touch.
A huge robot loomed over the other end of the beach, it was nearly four stories tall and had, no joke, shark heads for hands and a wicked set of shark teeth on its otherwise normal robotic face. I started to run over to help only to remember I couldn't do anything when I sailed through its leg. That's when I noticed the small army of smaller bots behind it, making me feel even more useless.
A loud motor above me made me look up to see a flying machine zoom past with a little fox and a blue hedgehog on board. The yellow/orange fox seemed to be in control of the machine while the hedgehog jumped off, my eyes grew wide as I watched him plummet only to crash into one of the smaller bots and go on a bot destroying rampage. He seemed fine after the fall and in fact seemed to be having a blast. He shouted insults to someone he called egghead and when the flying machine came around a second time it fired on the larger bot before dropping another hedgehog into the fray. This time it was a Pink one with an enormous hammer, smashing everything that got in her way.
I jumped as a large round man in a red suit of some kind chuckled behind me. "HOHOHOHOHO! Nice try Sonic, but you'll never defeat my newest creation with pathetic attacks like that! You don't stand a chance against the Mega-Sharkbot!" He was right about the guns not doing jack to it but they didn't seem worried.
The blue hedgehog replied with a grin, "We'll see about that Egghead!" Wait sonic? Wasn't that the name that knuckles had mentioned? Then that made him one of the heroes! My worries evaporated at the realization that he was one of the heroes that we were trying to get to help save our world. If the bot was as easy as it looked to me, then they would have no trouble walking all over it. As I watched Sonic exchange blows with the large bot his friends took on the army of minions. I was torn between watching Sonic gradually pummel the larger bot and watching the fox in the flying machine mow down row after row of minions, or the girl hedgehog simply crushing anything that dared get close to her. I had the feeling that even if I could have joined in I would have been standing here watching instead of helping just like I was now.
Sonic and his friends quickly dealt the final blows and Eggman retreated but before Sonic could peruse him Knuckles erupted from the ground ready for a fight, only to find it was over. "Man. You guys had all the fun without me!" I was right. I was seeing their world, or at least dreaming of it. Knuckles started to say something about the yellow emerald to sonic when the world started to fade.
"No! Not yet, I need to know what he said! I need to find out if they are coming to help us!" I started running toward them but everything faded to black before I could get close.
Shadows swirled around in the darkness, figures just out of the corners of my eyes, just out of view. I began running, trying to get away from the figures, only to find they could keep up with me. So I ran faster, when they began to multiply and gain on me I ran even faster.
I tried to use my silver sleeve but found it gone, and teleporting was useless if I couldn't tell one place from the next. I began to panic, they were gaining again and if I went any faster I would burn out before I would wake up, if I could wake up. I reached back for the emerald and my hand found my swords instead.
I slowed at the realization that I didn't have to run. Even if I couldn't see them outright or look directly at them, I could aim just fine without looking anyway. I dropped my speed and crossed my arms, grasping each of the swords but not drawing them just yet. The figures drew closer and clustered together on the edges of my vision. That's when I struck.
Dropping down into a sudden crouch I pulled both swords and spun around. Making sure not to look directly at them, the blades made contact with something. It looked like that was all it took to piss off the shadowy figures because they all came crashing in on me, I was catching more than glimpses of them now, as they swarmed they abandoned staying just out of sight, I wish they hadn't.
They were grotesquely disfigured creatures, like they used to be people. Fury, anger, and hatred mixed with sorrow, anguish, and pain the only recognizable emotions present. For each one I cut down two more took its place, and when I did succeed they simply melted into the darkness making room for the others to advance. I was spinning around slashing and hacking, quickly abandoning any strategy other than to fight and survive.
Seconds ticked by into minutes which in turn became hours, I lost all track of time wondering just how long it would take to wake up. Soon there was nothing beyond the ends of my swords except for more enemies, only shadows of people that I occasionally recognized as people I may or may not have met at one time or another.
When their numbers finally began to thin out I gave a gleeful, almost hysterical, laugh. I could see the unending darkness again, I could see something other than the angry, tormented forms that fell to my blades. As exhausted as I was seeing the end of the mass of shadowy figures was enough to give me my second wind. I put a little more flourish into my swings, a bit more bounce into my step, and a lot more power behind my strikes. Until I saw the last two figures amid nearly recognizable faces. I could almost make out villagers and friends who had fought beside Talon and I in our early years fighting Salem.
People we had failed to save.
People who had died by his word or his very sword.
My parents numbered among the remaining dozen or so figures.
I nearly dropped my swords then and there when I started running again, but I held on. I tightened my grip until it was painful and then ran even faster. I wasn't running from the unknown anymore. I wouldn't, no couldn't stand against them. I had watched each and every one of them die, had witnessed their deaths. Now that I was thinking about it many of the tormented faces I had just fought off were familiar too, probably the nameless people I had watched slaughtered on the battle fields over the years. It made me sick thinking that I had just killed them again, but what made it worse was that they were here like this in the first place.
They were gaining on me again and I just kept speeding up. I didn't care anymore if I ran out of steam, I just wanted out of this endless nightmare. I couldn't face my parents, not yet, not like this. I pushed myself to my limits and just kept going. There was nothing else that I could do so I went faster and ran harder. My lungs started to burn and my legs began to feel like jelly. Even though I hadn't put my swords back up I was not going to use them, not on my friends, not my parents. I was rapidly slowing down and they were gaining even faster. Gasping for air I turned to face the oncoming mob and raised my swords only to let them drop from my trembling hands.
I pulled out the Yellow emerald wondering if it could get me home again, before it was ripped from my grasp by a young soldier who had once saved my life only to lose his own days later.
The gem skittered to a stop just behind an old woman who used to bake sweets for us before her village was burned to the ground.
I dropped to my knees and reached for my swords only to be thrown by a backhand from another young man this time the leader of the first resistance, the one that we had originally joined and was later totally annihilated in a matter of minutes once they went head to head with Salem's main force.
I lay on the ground long enough to get a good kick from someone I couldn't see and another from the old woman. I tried to crawl away but didn't get far before another rain of blows from the others.
I don't know how long I lay there curled up in a ball hopping it would stop but when it finally did I was surprised to see two of the figures melting into the darkness with a lance sticking out of them. I looked around for the source when two more lances shot out and impaled three more of my aggressors. My eyes went wide as I identified the source.
"Are you seriously going to just lie down and take this? I can't believe you're the same girl that had the gall to stand up to me, and stop crying already it's just pathetic." I would have kicked anyone's ass had they told me I would be this happy to see Shadow, but right now I was glad it was him. I would have been too mortified to have been saved by anyone else.
"I'm not crying." I blushed as he made a disbelieving grunt. Alright I take that back, I would have preferred it be anyone but him.
"Another lance speared the twisted figure of a woman in an apron who had once made me a wonderful dress for spring only to be murdered by one of Salem's goons in a raid. I grimaced and dashed away from the incoming attack from my father as he swung his fist. If they had been armed I would have never survived this long, I would never have survived the initial onslaught of nameless men and women, but here and now I began to understand.
"What are you waiting for? I won't help you if you don't fight back."
"They aren't real are they." It was a statement not a question and even as I dodged another swing from my dead father I knew it wasn't entirely true.
"They are as real as you and I, at least here they are. I don't know how you ended up in this hell but you won't get out until they are all gone, or you die. Honestly it's your choice." I looked at him with wide eyes and then back to my parents, I couldn't kill them and I certainly didn't want to die. His ruby gaze never leaving me, not even when he finished off the others leaving only my parents between me and freedom. "This place is made up of our darkest places. The hardest things for us to let go of, and it turns it into the most horrible nightmare we can imagine."
I backed away from my parents some more, "But my parents were never like this, not even in my darkest nightmares!" desperation creeping into my voice, "There is no way I would have imagined something so horrid as this." Maybe it had simply lead up to this when I thought I recognized one of them? After all isn't that how nightmares like this usually get started?
"Doesn't matter, this place takes you deepest darkest fears and feelings and makes it real." He leaned against a decrepit old building that hadn't been there a second ago. "Face them, conquer them and you conquer this place." his arms were crossed and the look on his face was one of mild boredom.
"You want to run that by me again, because it sounded like you said this place is a dream and the only ways out are to kill my parents or die." If I was dreaming my imagination needed some work, and why Shadow? Why not someone nicer or more likely to help me? If it wasn't a dream why was he helping me? I dodged a few more blows as I thought about what he said.
My deepest fears, and the only way out was to face them. Well there was more than one way to face my fears. I didn't have to kill, I just had to let my fear go, let it fade into the darkness it was born from.
It didn't scare me as much anymore. I just had to trust myself and the potentially imaginary Shadow. I turned toward the shadows that resembled my parents. I took a deep breath and let myself relax. I opened my eyes as they struck one final time.
Shadows eyes went wide and he nearly tripped over his own feet when he lurched forward.
My heart nearly stopped when my parent's doppelgangers dissipated around me in a cloud of darkness that faded into the emptiness around me.
The nightmare world had felt overwhelmingly filled with darkness when I had arrived, now it was just empty darkness as much sense as that made. I smiled weakly at Shadow before disappearing into the darkness like my parents had done, leaving him with an astonished expression on his face.
When I woke I lifted my arm and gazed at the gold ring around my wrist, it wasn't a dream, he had the same rings on when I had first met him and he had them on in that world of nightmares. I couldn't explain why that made me happy, or why he infuriated me so easily. Perhaps it was because he was one of the first people I had met since my youth and I didn't think he would end up another face in the nightmare.
That's it for chapter seven! Hope you enjoyed it.
