Chapter 10- Shadow's First Mission
Hollow steel passages stretched cold and blank to the horizon in both directions, making Shadow feel as if he'd somehow been sealed on the inside of a tin can. When they struck the floor, his shoes made a dull clanking noise that rang out lonely and resonating in the corridor.
Turning to the left, he was met with a high security door. Standing comically on his tiptoes to peer into the iris scanner to the right of the door, he muttered under his breath as it ran over his ruby orbs. "User data matched. Proceed inside, Agent Shadow," the machine chirped in a synthetic, female voice.
"I swear I'm going to make GUN replace all of those with ones lower to the ground or something," he growled. "When did I lose the entirety of my dignity?"
'When you were laying senseless in Rouge's fluffy, pink, heart-adorned bed,' his voice responded dryly from within his skull. A slight smirk curved the corner of his lips for a split-second, before disappearing as quickly as it came.
With a hiss the metallic door slid open, granting him entry into GUN's war room. Within the expansive chamber, many soldiers and agents were bustling about, orders were being shouted, and gear was being handed out in a mad, chaotic rush. The Commander stood tall and imposing in the eye of the storm, shouting orders as the living hurricane swirled around him. His attempts to conquer the anarchy present failed, like all human attempts to eliminate disorder.
But Shadow alone knew the secret. He knew that chaos could not be conquered, it could only be controlled, harnessed for your own advantage. He was the master of controlling it, of creating an order from within the disorder rather than from without.
Without hesitating, he became one with the torrent, moving about within it, but independently of it. Darting between confused, bustling soldiers, he quickly gathered his gear, turned in his summons, and reported to the Commander for briefing. Almost as if he'd anticipated this frenzied rush, the grey old man handed the obsidian hero a single sheet of paper, before returning to his shouting.
Shadow's mind acted as a filter, gradually sifting through the sounds until the clamor of the chaos surrounding him wasn't even audible. Time seemed to crawl, as he gave his complete concentration to the sheet he'd been presented with.
'ORDERS: Report to docking bay for transfer to Forward Operating Base outside Westopolis at 1330.
GENERAL OBJECTIVES: To restore order to the city and commence restoration and reconstruction projects. More information will be provided at FOB.
RELEVANT INFORMATION: Westopolis was hit hardest during the Black Arms initial invasion, due to its inadequate defenses, and orbital bombardments left much of the city in ruins. The city was evacuated, but as a result of the confusion, looting became rampant. As GUN lost control of the city, this power vacuum was filled by organized crime syndicates, which perpetuated a system of violence, and hampered any efforts at the reconstruction of the city. In order to rebuild Westopolis and restore order, these gangs must be eliminated.'
The Ultimate Lifeform huffed as he made his way to the docking bay. He'd dealt with these gangsters already, alone, and he knew that they were not to be trifled with. However, the idea of returning to the city and getting some payback for his wounded pride was a pleasant one for him, and he was looking forward to this as his first opportunity to "shoot more terrorists."
Stepping into the docking bay, he stared upward at the high-vaulted ceiling that loomed above like a gray expanse of sky. Men in bright orange jumpsuits skittered about in a way reminiscent of worker ants, loading and unloading gear and tugging on long, snake-like tubes that were used to refuel.
A fleet of helicopters were roosting in the chamber, their noses pointed toward a gaping opening in the wall. He slung his bag of supplies and gear loosely over his shoulder, and climbed inside the nearest chopper.
An aroma met his nose of gasoline mixed with heated metal. He slid down into one of the mesh seats in the helicopter and fished through the duffel bag that held his gear. Pulling out a small, rectangular comm. unit, he strapped it to his wrist for easy use. Sitting back and sighing, he closed his eyes and waited for take off.
A blast of fresh, chilled air rushed inside of the massive steel bird as the side door lurched open with a screech. He stepped out to find himself standing at the familiar scene of a grassy hilltop crowned by a withered oak. Turbulence created by the spinning rotors tore the last few darkly colored leaves hanging to the tree's gnarled branches off, and sent them whirling wildly about through the air like blood red confetti.
Upon what had formerly more or less been 'his' hilltop, GUN had set up a small Forward Operating Base with a few jungle green tents around which several dozen soldiers and field agents bustled onto the next thing they had to do, and then the next.
Shadow quickly ducked inside the dank interior of the largest tent, where the field commander coordinated the individual missions of squads of troops and field agents to achieve the general objectives on his print-out. The field commander sat hunched in a fold-out seat, surrounded by innumerable papers and cigarette butts.
"Ah, Agent Shadow, you've arrived," he coughed, wiping a bit of spittle from his lips with the back of his hand. "Yes, I've heard all about your... experience. This mission should be something right up your alley."
"What've you got for me, sir?"
"Heh. You're aware of the United Federation's policy on assassinations, I assume."
Shadow scoffed. "I know what they tell the public."
"Then you know this mission you're about to receive is strictly confidential. It didn't ever happen. Understood?"
The Ultimate Lifeform nodded grimly and accepted a cream-colored folder stamped TOP SECRET. He opened it slowly, finding it to be a file on an individual named James Cordet.
"So who is this guy?"
The officer lit a cigarette before answering. "Leader of the main gang here in Westopolis. They're into everything: drugs, extortion, theft, murder... maybe even human trafficking."
"How do I find him?" Shadow's fist clenched unconsciously as he anticipated justice. "See, that's the catch. He lays real low. We've got no leads. So you need to do some investigating on your own. Once you've found this sucker, you do whatever you need to do."
"Sounds simple enough," the obsidian hedgehog replied, his responses characteristically clipped.
"Sure it does. They always do. But you're gonna' have to do more than find Cordet, you're gonna' have to wade through his entire army of thugs to get to him, without back-up. I'm placing his whole Goddamn mess - everything that's left of the city under martial law. I can't spare the men for a lengthy campaign, so you're going in to drop this bastard alone."
Shadow simply nodded in response to this speech, and turned to go. He didn't know where he would find Cordet, but he did know exactly who he would ask.
Nonchalantly he walked into the city, seemingly ignoring devastation that had only increased tenfold since he was there last. Finding a ruined phone booth with shattered glass, he reached inside and tore out the phone book. The pages were stained and torn, but more the most part readable. Thumbing through them, he finally seemed to come upon what he'd been searching for.
Punching in the number on his wrist comm. unit, he waited as the phone rung on the other end.
"Hello?"
"Kaigar, I need your help."
"Who is this?" he responded in disbelief, his voice hushed.
"I'm the one who brought you out of a life of violence and crime. Now it's your turn to pay me back."
"What do you need?"
"I'm in Westopolis with GUN. I've been assigned to track down the leader of the gang that rivaled yours, James Cordet, known to friends as Big Jimmy," Shadow replied, his tone silently insisting that he would not be disappointed.
"Look man, I left that life behind me. I don't want to get caught up in-"
"You owe me this favor. Besides, you don't need to fear vengeance from a dead man."
Isaac paused, conflict between gratitude and fear brewing within him. "Alright, but you didn't hear this from me. Cordet and his men have their hideout in the abandoned subways under the commercial district. That area was the least damaged in the bombardments."
"What should I expect?"
A lengthy sigh rang out over the the other end, almost like the question has been anticipated, but not at all looked forward to. "Cordet is fond of taking prisoners, making them into slaves. If you don't act swiftly, it may soon become a hostage situation. Be careful."
"Nothing I can't handle." Leaving no time for reply, he hung up and began slowly plodding towards Cordet's hideout.
Weary streets seemed to heave and flex as the dark one walked through them, and at every turn the pavement cracked and buckled. Descending steps that led below the ground, he pulled away chain-link fence to enter the abandoned metro. Oil-drums housed glaring crimson lights periodically, forming islands of light in a sea of undulating darkness.
The gloomy, deserted atmosphere of the underground tunnel seemed to amplify the smallest of sounds, making the small click of his footsteps sound like rolls of thunder. Not unnerved, but certainly alert, he crept warily forward, expecting that behind each corner lurked a nefarious mobster.
Bodies of hapless transients who had wandered into the subway lay scattered unceremoniously on the ground like pieces of litter.
At last, he came upon a station where several drums were clustered together in a constellation of light. Huddled around them were various rough and criminal individuals, all seeming to eye each other and their surroundings in great suspicion. They had not yet seen him, as his coloring served as a rather effective camouflage there in the bowels of the Earth.
Taking a moment to study the fortified encampment, he spied a large, cage-like structure that housed a multitude of miserable captives. All of them seemed unified in hopeless despair, and stared despondently into the blankness around them.
To the left of the prison, a ramshackle barracks stood, indignant and proud in its dilapidation. The sunken eaves of its sharply slanting roof seemed to exist for no reason besides the pretense of shelter, as the concrete ceiling above admitted no outside weather.
Surmising that this sad structure was likely Cordet's headquarters, he gripped the smooth, shining surface of the Chaos Emerald, and drew its power into himself. A wave of energy blazed over his body, as within the blink of an eye, he was gone.
Suddenly, with a flash of light and heat, he was within the pitiful shack. Whirling around was the figure of a massive and disfigured man he presumed to be Cordet. It was easy to see why he was called 'Big Jimmy.' With every movement he made, he seemed to inflate like a balloon, until Shadow half expected him to grow to be the size of the building and finally burst.
Reacting to Shadow's appearance, Cordet whipped an appropriately large pistol out of its holster, centering it on his assailant's forehead.
"Who are you, and what do you want?" he demanded in a voice as big as his body. "How did you get in here?"
"So many questions assail your mind. How does it feel, the loss of control?" Shadow breathed rhetorically, stalking slowly forward as if the pistol didn't even exist.
"You take one more step, I'll kill you," he still seemed confident. How foolish.
Faster than a flash, Shadow reached out with a grip like an iron vice, twisting Cordet's wrist the wrong way and earning a sickening snapping sound. The gun slipped idly from his fingertips like it had been buttered, as a muffled sound attempted to escape his lips. Shadow now held his hand over the gangster's mouth; Cordet was on his knees and trembling.
"GUN has sent me to take care of you James - may I call you James?" he paused, but knowing full well that Cordet couldn't speak, he continued shortly. "But, unfortunately for you, being nice or quick isn't in my job description."
Cordet's eyes seemed to be trying to match the rest of his body in size, as they inflated as well. At last he understood for what murderous purpose the agent had come, and made a vain attempt to struggle against him.
Grunting as he heaved the mountain of flesh into the air, Shadow hurled him like an oversized baseball, crashing through the wall of the shack with a loud bang and a shower of splinters. Other gang members seemed to shake themselves awake as if they had been asleep when they head the sound, and stared in a mixture of awe and horror at the groaning mound of a man.
Shadow walked slowly through the great tear in the shack, stepping on Cordet's heaving chest as he cupped his dirty chin and looked into his eyes.
"Your eyes betray you, James. I know you already," Shadow began in a condescending tone. "You think that your size makes you somehow more important, as if your gravity outclasses even the Sun; everything revolves around you."
Cordet glanced into the eyes of his lackeys to appeal for help. But they were so paralyzed by fear of the obsidian assassin that they simply watched as he was brutally taunted.
"And your men have no loyalty to you. They know that one mistake will put them in that pen; that people are nothing but cattle to you."
A swift punch to the side of the head slammed his temple into the pavement, making his head ring. Cordet was whimpering now, like a dog being beaten. Bloodied and bruised, the mobster seemed to rapidly deflate as Shadow wrapped his hands around his head. "Please, have mercy!"
"I will. But not on you."
With these final words, he gave a sudden twist. Cordet's bulk went limp, as his eyes became filmed by the glazed over look of death. Dusting off his hands as if they'd somehow been dirtied, Shadow turned his attention towards the remaining, pathetically cowering criminals.
"Let this serve as an example to all of you. GUN will not tolerate anarchy and lawlessness. Continue in your crimes, and share his fate."
At receiving this warning, they all seemed unsure of what to do next.
"Go!" he bellowed ferociously, sending them all scampering off like frightened rabbits. Waiting until every last one had scrambled pathetically from his presence, he finally turned to the cage. Its gate was locked with a simple padlock, the key for which was buried in the dead Cordet's pocket.
As the gate swung open with a creak, Shadow saw that most of the prisoners looked stunned, but one in particular was elated. A small, gray-furred cat boy rushed at Shadow and clung happily to his leg. Although his first instinct was to kick him off, he quickly felt guilty and softened himself, instead simply prying the child gently off.
"You're my hero, mister!" he beamed, his youthful face painted with admiration and enthusiasm.
"What's your name, kid?"
"I'm Slate!" he declared proudly, as if it were the best possible name anyone could hope to have. "You're a GUN agent, aren't you?"
Further softened by the boy's cheerful and thankful demeanor, and not entirely opposed to having his ego stoked, Shadow decided to humor the boy. "Agent Shadow. I'm here as part of a task force that is working to restore peace to the city," he answered. "Wow... so you fight bad guys and save people, like a super-hero."
"I guess you could say that," he couldn't suppress a chuckle at being called a super-hero.
"When I grow up, I want to be an agent, just like you," Slate said dreamily, as if envisioning the future.
"Don't you have a dad to idolize, kid?" While less cutting than perhaps his normal sarcasm would be, Shadow's tone was sharp.
Slate's face fell suddenly. "My dad worked for Dr. Eggman, but one day these bad guy's showed up and..."
It was not difficult to guess at what had happened. Envious of the technological information Slate's father had access to, Cordet's men had tried to take it. When dad refused, they killed him and enslaved his poor son.
Seeing an opportunity to gather some valuable intelligence on the doctor, Shadow took the opening.
Soon afterwards, he'd had Slate direct him to his home, so that he could gather what useful information there was to be had. He then returned to the Forward Operating Base with the intel and the boy. The field commander was a bit surprised to see Slate, and looked at him inquisitively.
"This boy has provided invaluable information that led to the recovery of intelligence concerning Dr. Eggman," he pompously began, for the boy's benefit. "I would like to officially request that he be immediately accepted as a Junior GUN Cadet, sir."
He smiled and nodded. "Report to the quarterdeck to receive your equipment, Cadet!" At this, Slate gleefully bustled off, his head racing with excitement. Shadow turned more gravely to his superior. "The fat man is dead."
"Good. Your mission here is complete, and I must say, very swiftly done. Cordet's death will do more for establishing order here than any other single act."
"You should know, Slate's father was killed by Cordet's men. I found him down there when I was making the assassination."
The officer seemed troubled by this. "What are you suggesting?" "Sure I wanted to impress the kid with all that 'Junior Cadet' crap, but he does want to be an agent someday. Maybe GUN should take him into custody, train him, take him seriously."
A puff on the cigarette. "It's highly irregular, but under the circumstances, I suppose it's the only course of action. As for you, you're needed back home. They have some urgent paper-pushing that needs done. Prep for immediate transport."
With a cocky, mock salute, the Ultimate Lifeform sauntered towards the same helicopter he'd come in, staring out at the ruined city. Countless other missions of construction and restoration, police work and subterfuge were being carried out within its walls.
The blades began to spin. As he was lifted into the air, the last thing he saw before being spirited away was the small, gray Slate staring up at him as if he were looking at a god, a tin foil badge pinned proudly on his chest like those that firemen give to children when they visit Elementary Schools. The boy waved at Shadow, and the Ultimate Lifeform couldn't help but smiling and waving back, as he wished the boy the best possible future he could have.
He did not see Slate again for many years.