Stage 5: Cryptic Castle

While Shadow was finally starting to put it all together, I was feeling awful.

I hurt everywhere. Every movement sent a wave of sick through me. I was sure that if I got up to fast, I was going to throw up. Problem was, I hadn't eaten since before Westopolis. There really wasn't anything to throw up. Still, I didn't feel as thirsty as I did when I'd collapsed.

That wasn't the only thing I felt.

For a minute I thought I was dreaming, or maybe I was dead. It was warm where Westopolis had been cool… I could hear a soft voice humming… and a soft cloth, or a hand beneath it, was rubbing my chest and my stomach lightly. For a minute I honestly wondered if all of my adventures, everything I'd done, was all just a dream, and I was really laying there sick next to my mother. The whole thing was a little toddler's fever dream, maybe. I'd wake up to popsicles and medicine, and my choice of books to be read to me…

Then I moved my foot, and I felt the hard, hollow groove of my shoe against my arch. I remembered the day I'd first gotten my SOAP shoes, not long before the first time I met Shad. I remembered how stiff the bottom had felt against my foot, how softly and perfectly the heel had curved around mine. A child's fever dream couldn't have shoes that real. Whoever was rubbing my stomach like I was a sick kid, it wasn't my mother.

As much as I wanted to stay there… and as much as I would have considered it if I'd known it was Tails or Cream or something, I knew it wasn't. It wasn't either of their voices. It was a familiar voice, but one I'd never heard quite so soft. That just about narrowed it down to two people, and I was a little scared of both.

I opened one eye just a little, fighting to keep it open. I had no idea why I felt so tired. It was like it took monumental effort just to fight the burn of having it open. I saw pink, not white, and was mildly relieved. Amy can be a little bit of a creep, but the only other option I could have seen there was Rouge, and I think you can understand why I don't really trust her.

She stopped humming. "There you are, Sonic. I was so worried."

I groaned. "What are you doing?" I tried my best to sound accusatory, although to be honest, I didn't really want her to stop. Well, no. I wanted her to stop, wrap me up in a blanket, and then work on my head. My head hurt the worst, especially right up front. If I felt like I could move, I wouldn't have wanted to waste time. There was a world to save and I could be sick later. It didn't work that way, though. The fact was, I knew I couldn t really get up yet. No sense worrying about it.

She reached up and brushed my face with her hand, and I fought a shudder. I didn't want her to get the wrong idea and think I was enjoying it a different way than I actually was.

"I'm trying to help you feel better. I was looking for Cream and I just found you lying here. I don't think I've ever seen you look so sick." She rubbed my forehead lightly. "Is it true… about Shadow?"

I half-smiled, hoping the truth wouldn't scare her too much. "Depends on what you mean by it. But yeah…" I sighed. "I don't really know how to steer him in the right direction… how to stop him."

"I do," Amy answered calmly. "We're going to get you sitting up, feed you something, and then we're going to go rescue Cream. I think Eggman kidnaped her and hid her in his castle."

"You have food?" I asked, trying to keep a straight face as the thought turned my stomach.

"Nothing you'd like right now." She sighed, and added, sadly, "I'm not used to you holding still."

I forced my eyes open and pulled out my things. I still had Tails' sack lunch with me. "I don't know how long it's been.. it doesn't feel cold, so the yogurt probably isn't very good."

She took the bag out of my hands and rifled through it. "Ew. Looks like you sat on the banana."

I sighed. "Just help me sit up and I'll eat the damn thing."

It was about an hour before I was able to get moving again, and the nausea and the pain never quite went away. Amy, for her part, was pretty cool about the whole thing. She was patient with me, and once I got sitting up she kept her hands to herself except for my shoulders. I wondered what I'd done to put myself in a state like this, but I wasn't about to openly speculate with Amy. She's a good friend and I trust her in a lot of ways, but there are a some things she just doesn't understand.

I tried to keep all the things I didn't want her to worry about off my mind. Amy can read me pretty well, almost as well as she can read Shadow. I focused instead on the little yellow-tan brick guard posts around us, the dying vegetation. The eerie shape of a castle in the distance, shaped like something out of a dream and colored like a nightmare. It reminded me of Shadow. I couldn't get away from him. So I decided to stop trying.

"You think you're ready to rescue Cream?" she asked me as I climbed to my feet.

"No time to waste. I'll call Tails and ask him what's going on after this."

"He told me about Shadow. I called him when I found you lying there."

I nodded. So Tails had run into Shadow. "That explains a lot."

Amy pulled out her hammer and smashed a gate open in front of us, grunting. Past it, I could see Eggman s castle in the distance, huge beyond the next hill, like something out of a horror movie. Some kind of bluish smoke was coming out of the smokestacks, looking almost like ghosts in the distance. He sure had a thing for haunted places and haunted people.

I guess he told GUN, too."

"What?" I felt my jaw drop.

Amy looked back at me, putting away her hammer and putting her hands on her hips. "If Shadow's collecting Emeralds, don't you think GUN should know?"

I was so angry I slapped myself in the face. "So they can lock me up again?"

Yeah, last time Shadow got out, he started collecting chaos emeralds so he could use them in that canon and destroy the world. GUN thought I was him and threw me in lockup in this place called Prison Island. I couldn't get out without actually hurting people, you know, not just smashing robots, so I had to sit it out. Amy was actually the one to rescue me.

"They're not going to lock you up."

"On the contrary," came a voice from behind us. I knew it well.

"Eggman."

We turned, and there was a little gray pod with a tiny screen on it. I could just make out his face on it, although if it were black and white, I coulda easily mistook him for Gerald… for Shadow's creator. Family resemblence, I guess.

"Sonic! You're looking well," he greeted. I could hear the sarcasm dripping in his voice. "Your Shadow troubling you?"

"I'm sure if I turn around and see him, there'll be three more weeks of winter," I quipped.

I thought I saw a smile. Not that smug, arrogant grin Eggman had, but a real smile.

"I'm so glad you can keep your sense of humor about this. Look, Sonic. I want to stop Shadow as much as you do. He and Tails are far more efficient at wrecking my belongings than you ever dreamed of being." Then came that little grin he has when he thinks he's got something on you. I could see it clearly even though his mouth was only a couple pixels wide on that screen . "It seems he's a bad influence on the foxboy."

For a second, it felt like my heart was going to stop in my chest. In a lot of ways, Shadow and Tails had a lot in common. The way Shad was devoted to Maria, Tails was devoted to me. If anything ever happened to me… Tails would never be quite that bad for a lot of reasons, but he might end up more lke Eggman. You know, angry, with a grudge and an idea that he could make things better, but maybe without caring enough what it cost. Tails was smarter than Eggman. I didn't want to know what would happen if he were just as angry. I glared. "Tails knows better than to take him seriously. We've been over this."

"Ah, but it gets worse, Sonic. Shadow just escaped from Prison Island. Or rather, Omega rescued him. He was unconscious, apparently drugged. I can think of only one person who would have the means and motive to do such a thing."

I nodded again. That explained a lot. I was going to give Tails a good talking-to for getting Rouge involved.

"Once GUN reduces its presence on the island, I'm sending more of my robots in to glean what they can from my grandfather's cell."

"Why do you care?" Amy erupted. I had to say, I was wondering the same thing, but I had a feeling I understood.

He shook his head. "Amy… how delightfuly simple of you. I know you often refer to me as a madman, but the fact is that I only want power, not destruction. Shadow is destruction. He is a literal manifestation of the darkest moment of my grandfather's life, of my family legacy. And as we speak he's waiting to come out of whatever haze he's under so he can gather the chaos emeralds. For what? I can think of only two things he would do with them…"

"He thinks there's a third," I added.

"Does he? Then he's deluding himself into one of the other two."

Amy and I looked at each other. As right as he was, I was getting tired of listening to Eggman, and the look on her face made me think she agreed.

"Eggman, we don't have time for this," I snapped.

"What have you done with Cream?" To the point, as always. That's Amy.

"She's locked in a secure room in my castle," Eggman informed us. "I put some cartoons on for her."

"Why?" Amy asked.

"Because Shadow responds to young, innocent women who remind him of Maria. My actions will keep Cream safe, but they'll also give me a trump card should he try to come after me."

Amy charged in, roaring, leaving me there with Eggman's pod.

"Choosing not to help her, Sonic?" he taunted me. "My, she might even give up on her aspirations toward your hand."

I just shook my head and laughed, even though I didn't feel much like laughing. "Eggman, you're an idiot. I know you're not going to hurt her becuase you need her alive. You're going to keep her as safe as you'd keep your chao. When this mess with Shadow is taken care of, I'll come get her."

"And what happens when Shadow finds her in the meantime?"

"Then you make the slightest hint of threatening her and he puts a bullet between your eyes right in front of the kid. I shrugged even as I heard him gasp. I was pretty sure my eyes gave away how surprised I was at my own comment. I controlled my eyebrows, forcing them down as I continued. And that wouldn t break my heart, Eggman. I know you won t be happy until you kill me, not anyone else, but I don t really care what you do as long as you aren t hurting someone. If someone kills you, that s sad, but it d be stupid of me to consider it my problem, especially after it's already done and I warned you it would happen."

My head began to throb. I could feel my heart speeding up in my chest. I didn't really feel that way, did I? But the words came so easily. I told him that to protect him, right?

"Then what do you suggest I do, you meddling needlemouse?"

"You could clear the way for Amy, let her think she saved the kid all by herself, and focus on more productive ways to get rid of Shadow."

He paused, and eventually I thought I saw a hint of a nod on that tiny screen. "You're looking a little red in the face."

"I'm in a pretty black mood, yeah," I snarled. "I'm going looking for Tails. I don't want a scratch on either of those girls, Eggman."

I looked off at the castle behind us, the one Amy had run into. It towered up over the landscape, brown and sandy bricks, Sleeping Beauty's castle. For a second, I had to laugh. It was like a fairy tale: rescue a little princess from a castle. I m a lot older since those days, though. I've read the real fairy tales. Sometimes a princess was better off not getting rescued.

I took off into the jungle, leaving Amy behind.