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

Ch.11 Fragile Allegiance

I watched, wholly confused as Regis made a break for it and left Booker to face us alone. Big mistake, I was slammed sideways with the blunt side of Bookers great sword and only landed again after crashing through a tree. Dazed and no longer confused I tried, unsuccessfully to stand up immediately after landing only to find that it was incredibly hard to stand up when the world was spinning faster and in more directions than it was supposed to. From the sounds coming from the direction of the battle I wasn't the only one having trouble standing.

"Now would be a good time to use your weapons Gramps!" I managed to stand up in time to see Fel scramble toward me to avoid taking a hit like I had. "Whisper! Good to see you're alive, now move!" I was about to protest when the berserker came barreling up behind him. Nope!

"Don't lead him this way you idiot! Are you trying to get me killed?" We both ran, dodging blows and trees as we tried to circle back around to the clearing where the others were.

Something crashed behind us, we didn't dare look back but when Regis ran past us we nearly stopped to look at one another. Then Bookers sword landing between us reminded us why we were running in the first place.

I glanced back long enough to see something even I had never seen before. A stampede of monsters were crashing through the forest behind the oblivious Berserk Booker and heading straight towards the clearing.

"The hell is that!" Fel was apparently as curious as I had been.

We broke out of the cover of the forest at a dead run and didn't stop to explain to the others as they gave the three of us befuddled looks.

"Stampede!" forget Booker, if that stampede made it to us we were toast.

Booker made it out before the rampaging monsters did. The old fox had readied his weapon after Fel led him into the forest and was now leveling the bazooka at him. With a resounding BOOM the forest went silent. Every inhabitant in these mountains knew that sound.

The Stampede had stopped in its tracks and we could see the largest of the monsters above the trees, hesitating, trying to decide their next move. I however knew mine, I turned on Regis and punched him, hard. He had been the reason we were in this mess in the first place, he had led the army to our doorstep, he had injured my brother and Rune, he had started the stampede and left both of his comrades to die. "Gaaah! I give, I give!" I wanted to hit him again but Fel stopped me.

"Whisper don't." I thought about Fleet and how he had died by the sword of one of his own, how Regis had decided to abandon him instead of helping. It took everything I had not to let him get to me, not to lower myself to his level.

"Yes, yes listen to your cat friend! I'm not a threat anymore. Those monsters were going to kill me, please just let me go!" His pleading was making me sick.

"You're a coward you know that? Nothing but a bully with a bad attitude and nothing to back it up. I can't believe you gave us such a hard time, you couldn't even get away from a bunch of monsters. How the hell did you make it this far in the first place?" Talon and his way with words, it was true though now that I looked at him, he was in much worse shape than when he had run away and there was no way he was that injured from one punch.

"You let your men take the fall for you. This whole time we've been worrying that you made it through the forest on our own and that you might have been one of Salem generals. You're just a lowly soldier put in charge of the others because you can throw your weight around aren't you?" I was ready to throttle him good. If he hadn't been so pathetic and injured on top of it I would have. "Fleet was stronger than you." I made it a point to make that last sentence as harsh as possible.

"That..that's… You thought we might have been generals?"

"We ask the questions. You answer." Maxis looked like he was ready to throttle him as well if he didn't get the answers he wanted. My mouth twitched up at the thought of pulling Maxis off of him.

"Y..yes sir." He swallowed hard, "I was put in charge of the others, we were ordered to infiltrate the ruins in this area and track down the inhabitants. Fleet outranked me but he was demoted for disobeying orders, serving under me was supposed to be his punishment."

"And Booker?" Maxis was milking this for all it was worth. It wasn't often that you found one of Salem's soldiers willing to give out info so freely.

"He was suppos' to be a fail safe, a last resort. If we couldn't beat you right away we were suppos' to retreat and let him go all berserker and kill you on his own."

"Yeah, that worked so well." Fel crossed his arms and rolled his eyes. How had this guy gotten the better of Talon? Oh right, Rune.

I looked over to find her when I heard a loud thud and felt a breeze behind me. Booker…

I spun around in time to watch Fel drop him with his cannon and nearly lost what little I had eaten when I saw what was left of Regis. He had been crushed beneath Bookers sword, and from the looks of it died instantly. I turned away from the grisly scene. I wondered how many people had died because of this stupid fight, this stupid mission of theirs. We would give them all a burial, even if they didn't all deserve it. We just couldn't stomach the thought of letting the monsters get to them.

Rune had the worst injuries besides Talon, who had protected her, nothing too major. Some bruises and broken ribs, they had gotten off lucky considering what happened to Regis… it could have been me or talon getting scrapped off the forest floor, suddenly I didn't feel so good.

We buried what was left of Booker first, then Regis. It was as fast and to the point as we could manage with the circumstances. Rune had been standing over Fleet the whole time after getting patched up by Fel. "Guys… I think he might still be alive… what do we do?"

"Help him! Stop the bleeding! Do something Rune!" I ran over to Fleet nearly running her down in the process.

Maxis pulled medical supplies I didn't know he had out of his pack and told everyone but Rune to take two steps back.

Talon, Fel and I occupied ourselves with filling in the third grave we had dug while the other two kept Fleet alive. We knew that we may very well have to dig it again but it made us feel useful, and a bit better to think that we might not. We shared our thoughts on Fleet and the things he had told me, as well as what Regis had said. We couldn't let him die, even if we couldn't trust him afterwards. We all had something important to protect and so did he. We had no right to let him die like this.

We finished filling the grave around midnight and Fleet was finally stable, unconscious but alive. I decided to put in early for the night, no point in pushing myself when I was already exhausted. We wouldn't be able to move Fleet to the temple till daylight anyway. I'll think about everything later, when I wake up…

Darkness, or what used to be darkness. Now it was more like a perpetual twilight with streaks of darkness intertwined.

"You're back early." Did he live in this awful place or something?

"Yeah, guess I am, do you…." I cut myself off.

"Do I what?" he raised an eyebrow at me. Always with the eyebrow.

"Nothing, never mind." Stupid question, it was night time, most people slept at night, I just happened to sleep part of the day as well. "So…. We won."

"Why don't you sound like you won?" his concern was almost touching, but I knew the questions he was really asking.

I sighed and ran a hand through my quills before starting. "Good news or bad news?"

"Preferably both." Alright then.

"No one from the army was a general, we were surprised by one of the three in charge, but for the most part they were easy enough to handle. No drastic measures needed."

"And?"

I flinched at the way he said it. I set about explaining the whole thing from the beginning, everything. "…and now we're pretty much waiting for daylight to move Fleet to the temple."

I was met with silence, deafening silence. I don't know what Shadow had been expecting or how I had expected him to react but this wasn't it. It seemed that lately every time I expected something to happen it didn't and vice versa.

"I hope you don't plan on staying at the temple just because of this Fleet."

"I hadn't thought about that."

"I see… and what do you plan on doing if he turns on you again?"

"Leaving him at the temple because his injuries won't let him follow us. We will deal with him when we get back if worse comes to worst." Shadow gives me a slow nod. His lack of response was rubbing me the wrong way again. "Are you going to say something or are you going to just stand there staring at nothing the entire time I'm here?" The eyebrow again.

"What do you want me to say? That I'll hold your hand and sing songs to make you all feel better? Maybe you want me to tell you the secrets of the universe so that everything will fall into place and you will all live happily ever after?" I couldn't hide my embarrassment at his anger, I really didn't know what I expected. "I'm sorry but that's not how it works. I don't know the secrets of the universe and I certainly wouldn't be handing them out like candy if I did. I don't hold hands or sing songs, that's faker and his friends' thing so if that's what you're looking for you've got the wrong person. I don't do the helping people for no reason thing."

"Then why are you helping me?" I was certain my face had become as red as the glass shard in my armor and I knew I was on the verge of trying to leave this place even though I knew I couldn't.

"In case you hadn't noticed you have the last chaos emerald in your world, I can't exactly go and get it myself." So that was it, I hadn't thought of it that way before.

"If that's it then why don't you take it from me when I'm here?" I should not be giving him ideas, why had I said that?

"This world isn't real, it's just a shared nightmare. Even if I took it from you here it wouldn't change anything in the real world." Oh thank god. I thought he was going to think it was a good idea and take our only hope away.

… Silence again.

"He sighs, "I don't have time for this kind of thing."

"Really? Because last I checked there wasn't much else to do here." Hah, got him with that one. More silence as he turns away from me shaking his head. Why was I acting like a kid? This wasn't an argument to be won, it was a problem that needed to be solved. "I'm sorry Shadow, I didn't mean to…"

"No, it's alright I get it." He ran his hand through his Quills with a loud huff. "I don't know why but you irritate me almost as much as faker does." I irritated him?

"Hah! Seriously?" he turned back to me at the outburst. "That's why you've been so short with me? I thought you just hated everything, or people." His face reddened and he looked away from me. Wait was he embarrassed?

"So you don't have any new info on Salem's generals?" wow he changed subjects fast.

"No, just that we had trouble with their subordinates."

"And now you want to save one of them…"