Extra long chapter 20!
Boy did this take a while!
I mean juggling house guests, child-minding, work and this in one go was mental!
But hey, got it done didn't I.
Anyway, lets get this show on the road!
Shadow stood before his Commander, his nerves trembling inside as he could only guess what the greying human had to say.
The Commander finally looked up from his work after the ebony hedgehog had been standing there in silence for a couple of minutes. There was disappointment reflected in his eyes, but a stern expression fixed on his face.
"What went wrong Agent Shadow?" His voice cut through the silence like a knife. "Your mission was a simple snatch and grab rescue, but you ended up sending the rat scurrying from its den! Dr. Robotnik has escaped, and we are still no closer to finding out what that madman has been doing over these past few years!"
"There is no doubt that with thorough sweeps of the Death Egg we may find some clues. But this was meant to be a mission relying on stealth, not a gun-hoe attitude or a disregard of basic safety protocols!"
The Commanders voice had been gradually rising in volume until he practically bellowed the last sentence. Shadow had taken a step back, for the first time finding his human Commander intimidating.
"You are not the only Agent of G.U.N Shadow! It is not your place to wage a one-man war against the likes of Robotnik!" The Commanders face was red with rage.
"With all due respects Sir, I've had more experience dealing with the Dr. than any other Agent!" Shadow shouted, finally finding his voice. "He's my responsibility!"
"He isn't anymore Shadow!" Shadow took another step back, once again speechless. "That mission was a near disaster! Sonic the Hedgehog may never fully recover and Agent Rouge will always carry those scars! The missile launched from the Death Egg was targeted at Mobotropolis, and I have just had a report that all communications between here and there have been severed, so we have no idea whether to launch a rescue or a cleanup operation!"
The Commander lurched out of his seat. "Your failure today has created unknown repercussions across the globe! You are even lucky to be alive, and you have the audacity to march into my office and make demands about responsibility!"
The human's hands were shacking as he slowly lowered himself back into his seat. "Were you any other Agent, I would take away your badge and throw you out on the street! However, I cannot afford to lose you. I have therefore decided to place you in charge criminal investigations, heading the homicide department."
"But I'm your top Agent!" Exclaimed Shadow, his eyes wide and with a slight hint of panic in his voice.
"Not anymore Shadow!" The Commander growled. "I believe you still have a case to solve. Now get out of my sight!"
Defeated and dejected, Shadow turned on his heel and walked slowly out of the office. He past Cassie without a word, not even hearing her questions. He slowly made his way towards the elevator.
Several paces from his destination, the once proud hedgehog slumped against the wall and slowly slid down to sit on the floor.
He buried his head in his hands. He couldn't believe what had happened, what was happening. His world was falling apart before his very eyes. He had done everything he could have done but it still wasn't enough.
Two of his closest friends had almost been killed because of him. The mere thought of which brought back a sudden rush of his earliest memories, of her, of Maria.
Rage over her death surged through him, an anger he had not felt since the Black Doom Invasion. His anger and sorrow mingled together as salty warm tears began o form in his tightly clenched eyes.
Suddenly a warm, comforting feeling enveloped him, sending his dark memories spiralling back into the recesses of his mind. Dimly he became aware of another heartbeat close to his. So close, so reassuring.
He was being held gently, his head close to someone's chest as he was slowly rocked back and forth. He let his hands fall from his face and stole a glance at who took such pity on him. It was Cassie.
Normally, Shadow would have shrugged his comforter away, but this time something stopped him. Her eyes were closed as she held him closely, humming a soft tune. Shadow shifted slightly to relieve the building ache in his legs, and she opened her eyes to look down upon him.
They stayed this way for what felt like hours. The corridor to the Commander's office was rarely traversed by anyone not of high rank, and so there were no others to witness the moments that passed between the two hedgehogs.
After a while Shadow made a move to get up and Cassie lent him a hand. He looked into her eyes. A small sympathetic smile appeared on her lips.
"Who am I Cassie?" He asked. A frown appeared on her face.
"Now what sort of question is that!" Shadow's eyes widened in surprise. "You're Shadow the Hedgehog! You're a Hero, an adventurer, G.U.N Agent and saviour of the world!"
"Some hero I turned out to be." The ebony hedgehog scoffed. "I almost get two friends killed; I lose a sadistic madman and almost fail my mission!"
He looked her sternly in the eye. "Why do you care anyway? It's not like I've done anything to earn your trust or friendship, so why are you trying so hard?"
Cassie grinned. "Let's just say, you caught my interest when you saved my life."
Shadow did a double-take as his ears registered what she had just said.
"When did I- what do you- huh?" She giggled softly.
"You remember the Black Doom invasion?" He nodded slowly, wandering what she was getting at. "You remember the highway running out of Westopolis, where the Black Arms were pretty much annihilating the G.U.N forces?"
"Yeah…"
"Well, um… I was one of the soldiers tasked to hold that lethal highway. You saved my life Shadow."
Memories of the Black Doom Invasion flooded Shadow's mind. He remembered the temptation he felt upon hearing the words Black Doom had spoken regarding his past and the future. He remembered how close he had come to believing the tyrannical being and how near he had come to destroying the planet Shadow had sworn to protect. He remembered a small group of G.U.N soldiers being overwhelmed, and how he had slaughtered the creatures of the Black Arms in his rush to get to the fleeing tank.
"I saved you..?" Shadow asked disbelievingly. Cassie smiled and nodded.
"Yeah you did. And the Shadow I saw that day didn't give a flying monkey about whether he was the top dog or Agent or anything else! All he cared about was saving his home." Shadow felt a welling-up of pride and couldn't help but smile at her kind words.
Cassie watched Shadow's facial expressions change from despair to realisation and then to something akin to happiness.
"Thank you Cassie, you've really put it into perspective for me." He looked at her. "It doesn't matter what other people think, so long as I'm happy with who I am."
Cassie answered with a smile.
"What the hell…" She leaned foreword and kissed the startled hedgehog on the cheek. She withdrew, both of them slightly crimson. "That was for saving my life."
"Now come on. You can tell me what the boss-man said on the way to the car park."
She turned to lead the way, beckoning him to follow. Shadow placed a hand against his cheek, a warm, toasty feeling inside. He followed, wearing a smile and carrying a memory he wouldn't forget.
Rouge sat silently on the hospital bed. She had been there for just over an hour, and yet she had already been cleaned, patched up and dressed for her long stay in Station Square General. She had heard that there was meant to be a Psychologist coming to see her in the morning to test her mental stability, but that didn't matter.
What mattered to her was the fact that she had been through hell and survived. She had suffered a near surgical method of torture at the hands of a clear psychopath. She had watched the serpent get killed, seen the blood erupt from his head. He was dead, clear cut and simple. But for her, that death had come a little too late.
She had been told that Sonic was still in surgery due to the severity of his injuries, and that both Amy and Tails had been told.
They had arrived about half an hour ago, and for all Rouge knew they were still here, waiting outside for any word on their hero. Neither had been to visit her and the one person she wanted to contact distinctly lacked any form of modern communications.
She wanted to see him again; she needed to see him again. It had been the only thing to keep her going when it would have been so much easier to lie down and give up. She closed her eyes and thought of him, and where he might be.
"Don't tell me what I can and can't do!" The sudden commotion outside her door caused her eyes to snap back open, just in time to see it swing open and another patient limp in.
Rouge recognised the audacious anthro immediately, her face cracking into the first smile since Shadow had helped her onboard the helicopter.
"Rouge, what happened? You look terrible!" The white bat smiled at her friend.
"These last few hours are ones I'd rather forget." The anthro sat down next to her and wrapped her free arm around the bats shoulders.
"You know you can tell me anything girl." Rouge laid her head against her friends' fuzzy shoulder.
"I know, but I'd rather not think about it."
"Say no more Rouge." The feline turned her gaze on the two orderlies waiting just inside the door. "Will you two piss off? This is girl time!"
As they scrambled away Sheba pulled Rouge close, letting the night slowly creep by in a comforting silence.
"My name is Knuckles, Guardian of Angel Island and until recently, considered the last of the echidna race." He said flatly. His lone interrogator frowned.
"What are you talking about?" She demanded.
"Believe me, today came as a bit of a shock to me as well." Perhaps the biggest understatement the echidna had ever said.
When the day had begun, Knuckles had to his knowledge been the only surviving echidna on the whole of Mobius. Not only did he find out that he wasn't, he also found out that these echidnas had been living for who knows how long within another zone of existence, sent there by the combined power of the Master emerald and determination of the Priestess Tikal.
"But the last of the echidnas? That's just absurd!" Shade exclaimed. "True there has been a strict rule against parents having multiple children, but nether-the-less we have flourished!"
"I'm still trying to figure this whole thing out here! I mean, I thought the Nocturnus clan was wiped out along with the Pachacamac over two thousand years ago!"
"Two thousand years!" Shade's eyes widened. "But that can't be? We've only been trapped in the Twilight Cage for three generations!"
"Wait, but… that would only be what? A hundred, hundred and fifty years or so." Both echidnas looked at each other, wonder and confusion on their faces. Shade rubbed her chin.
"That must mean there's a time dilation between the Twilight Cage and Mobius, meaning we've been gone for…" She looked back up into Knuckles' eyes.
Just then the door was opened by a pink furred echidna with lavender bangs and violet eyes.
"There you are Shade! What are you doing with the intruder…?" She trailed off as she looked him up and down.
"Julie please close your gaping mouth." Muttered Shade while shaking her head. The pink echidna snapped her mouth shut, a slight red tinge coming to her cheeks.
She was slightly shorter than Shade, who in turn was slightly shorter than Knuckles. She wore a black and green vest, a golden belt, a pair of white mittens and a pair of heavy green boots. There was a strange multi-barrelled weapon attached to her right thigh and her left arm and one of her fore-quills had been augmented with cybernetic implants.
"Knuckles, this is my sister Julie-Su. Luckily she's only my half-sister." That snapped the new arrival out of her stupor.
"Hey!" Shade suddenly grabbed Julie-Su by her vest and pulled her into the confines of the small chamber, closing the door behind her.
"Breath a word of this to anyone and I'll get Doctor Zachary to remove your left arm!" Hissed the annoyed echidna.
"Oh come on Shade! All I want to know is why you're in here in the first place?" Julie-Su replied quickly.
"Listen Julie, Knuckles here isn't from this island!"
"Huh?" Confusion was evident on the young girls face. Shade groaned.
"You know we've somehow been freed from the Twilight Cage?" Julie-Su nodded. "Well Knuckles was already here when we got back!"
"But I… I still don't get it." Admitted the pink echidna, rubbing the back of her neck.
"Ugh! Just trust me on this would you?"
"All right, all right!" Stammered Julie-Su, holding her hands up in mock surrender.
"Procurator Lien-Da has ordered me to take him to the Imperator for further interrogation."
"Then why are you here instead of over there?" Julie-Su interrupted with a wide grin.
"I-I just… wanted to know what was going on instead of being kept out of the loop!"
"Of course you did." Muttered Julie, eyeing up the suddenly self-conscious Guardian.
"Julie!" Cried a distinctly red faced Shade.
"What? You have to admit, he's much better looking than all the other-"
"Yes! I get it!" Shade butted it. "Now if you excuse me?"
Shade pushed the symbol on her headband, causing her helmet to reshape around her head, and more importantly, hide her now very crimson cheeks from view. She then grabbed Knuckles by the arm and dragged him out of the chamber and back into the bleak corridor, leaving a rather happy looking Julie-Su waving them off.
Knuckles however, was still completely lost as to what had just happened.
King Elias clambered over some fallen debris as the trio forged on through the dimly lit tunnels.
"Found anything Rotor?" Bunny asked over the communicator.
The old Freedom Fighters had split into two groups, Bunny, Antoine and the King had gone in search of Dr. Robotnik's missile, while Rotor, as the technical minded one of the group, had ventured out on his own to recover the AI Nicole and attempt to restore power to the underground complex.
"I've managed to get Nicole and we're heading towards the backup generator now." The walrus's voice crackled back.
"Nicole, what's happened, any ideas?" Elias asked over his own communicator.
"It is logical that the projectile emitted a short ranged electromagnetic pulse to knock out my security sensors. However, there would be little reason for it to do so unless-"
"It wasn't a missile." King Elias interrupted with a snarl.
"My analysis exactly Sire." Antoine and Bunny shared a worried glance. "It is therefore to be assumed that Dr. Robotnik is somewhere within this underground facility."
"Well then, let's give the old Dr. a welcome he won't soon forget!" Elias drew his twin daggers and set off into the gloom. Antoine gingerly drew his own sabre and followed his King leaving Bunny Rabbot trailing behind.
"Do what you can Rotor." Bunny said over the crackling radio waves. "The King's on a mission."
"Alright Bunny, I'll let you know when I get power back." With a click, Rotor switched off his communicator, leaving Bunny in silence as she quickly caught up with the others.
Dr. Robotnik smiled as he hooked up his old backup power generator to his small collection of dusty computers and monitors. The small confines of the small lead chamber brought back a sense of nostalgia. Various tools and scraps of metal and electronics were scattered over worktops and discarded into the corners.
As the screens began to flicker back to life, some registered old blueprints and plans of some of the earliest mechanical marvels and monstrosities he had created. The Dr. however chose to ignore those, instead searching through the paper folders containing information on his illusive and mysterious former contact, whose research focussed on Daemonology and the theory that such creatures truly existed within another zone or realm of existence.
Dr. Robotnik recalled registering a large amount of Chaos energy being unleashed almost thirty-five years ago, long before the theory of Chaos energy had been jointly published by the eccentric Professor Von Schlemmer and the inventor Professor Caninestein, within the peaks of the largely unexplored Blue Ridge Mountain range, the supposed location of his contacts own secret laboratory.
For years Dr. Robotnik had searched for the well hidden base with little success. But just two days ago, there had been a break in the continuous blizzards that raged across the mountain range and his satellites had picked up a number of suitable locations. He had sent several search probes to investigate too little avail, until one was destroyed as it neared its target destination.
Flicking on his old satellite imager, Dr. Robotnik zoomed the fuzzy image to the last location where the destroyed probe transmitted. Squinting at the screen, he fiddled with the controls, cleared the image of as much interference as possible, and activated the thermal imaging. Small pinpricks and hotspots of red and yellow appeared on screen. After searching for several minutes the Dr. finally found what he was searching for. A sinister grin spread across his face and he turned to the old molecular transporter he hadn't used for years.
Hidden deep into the side of the largest peak of the Blue Ridge mountain range, a wizened old man in a long white coat, stained with years of experiments and caked in dirt shuffled through his dark, dreary and silent laboratory.
He walked slowly past several large cylindrical containers holding his many failed experiments floating in a thick green fluid. Each container bared a roman numeral, and each twisted form within was a foul imitation of anthro kind. Some looked more like the anthro they were meant to be than others, but each one was long dead and slowly decaying. All except one.
The old man stopped in front of his only living experiment, number thirteen. Inside the large container floated a red and black furred wolf wearing the same black skin-tight uniform the other experiments were wearing. The only thing that would cause her to stand out in a crowd were her four fluffy tails. She looked almost serene, floating peacefully in her glass container. The old man shuddered inwardly at the memory of when he had last released her.
The young wolf was the only one of his experiments to survive the fusion between genetic material and an otherworldly Daemonic entity. The process granted her unfathomable control over Chaos energy, increased speed and agility and extraordinary psychic abilities.
Unfortunately, this success also caused this seemingly peaceful creature to mutate into a draconic Daemon spawn, increasing the strength of her powers exponentially, and yet driving her into a rage fuelled slaughter of any and all living things in her path. So long as she was kept sedated and contained, Mobius would be safe. He ran his hand along the container, feeling the raised letters he had stamped onto the glass.
He slowly returned to his work desk and began pouring back over all the research he had done in his attempts to quell the murderous rage within her. Looking back down the line of silent tubes, he pondered the course of his life, the mistakes, the successes and everything that pushed him onwards.
"Soon my daughter, you will once again see the world and breath freely. I just need a little more time, my Silhouette." A sudden flash of light caused the old man to fall from his chair with a yelp. He stared through his now broken half-moon glasses at a figure striding towards him. His eyes widened as he recognised who it was.
"Greetings my old friend." Said the sinister voice.
"Wh-what do you want?" The old scientist asked, his voice quivering with fear. The figure chuckled.
"I want you to finally fulfil your end of the bargain. You've had thirty-five years to figure out what went wrong the last time, and my patients is now at an end!" Dr. Robotnik steped into the light flickering from the fallen lamp, a sinister glint in his eyes and an evil smile on his lips.
And there we go!
Another chapter done, more answers and more questions, more twists and more turns!
What's going to happen to Knuckles?
What is Dr. Robotnik up to now?
And who or what is this Silhouette?
And why do people only do three questions at a time?
Anyway, for more info on Silhouette you can asked her owner, Silhouette the Daemon-Wolf.
Otherwise, just stay tuned and we'll see what happens next.
This is Corrupt TE saying, see you next time!