In Cosmo's Shadow
By Kellie Fay
Disclaimer: Sonic, Shadow, Tails, Cosmo, and the others all belong to SEGA, Team Sonic, 4 Kids and other people not me
Okay so call me superstitious I didn't want to post a 13 without a 14 REVIEW ANYWAY!
Chapter 14
She sees without eyes
She led Shadow to a poor part of the town where many of the buildings were gutted and empty. She smiled when she saw him looking about in confusion.
"You live around here?" He asked appalled.
"Yes and no," she said. She led him into one of the abandoned buildings. The place possessed a sound structure, but Shadow could see the plaster hanging from the walls on the verge of falling, and the floors were dusty and unkempt. It looked like no one had lived here in ages.
She led him down into the basement to a strange room that had a circular doorway. Along one side of the walls computer monitors and indicators beeped and lit up doing their tedious jobs.
Pie turned around, and offered him her hand. Peaches hopped onto her shoulder. "It's right though here," she said. Suddenly nervous Shadow took her hand and passed through the porthole.
Inside he found paradise.
The golden sun beat down pleasantly from a sky bluer than Sonic's fur. Lush forest green grass cushioned his feet. He took a deep breath, taking in the sweet tropical scents of the place, so different from the pollution and dirt they just left. No wonder Espio always told him a chao garden would be a good place to center, and cleanse his mind and spirit. He couldn't imagine a more peaceful place in the world.
And then the chao descended on him. There were at least a dozen of them of a variety of ages and colors. All of them decided at once that they wanted to be his best friend. They grabbed on to his arms, legs, neck, and even his quills. All of them were smiling and chirping in their strange language. Even worse like a rainstorm descending on him, he felt enveloped within their communal empathic thoughts. In that moment he knew that Cheese did ask the others to watch for him. Communally they all decided he needed to be loved and cared for. Their innocent sense of welcome and belonging almost felt like a physical pain to him. He felt that he did not deserve that kind of trust. "No!" he protested shaking the emotions out of his mind. "Get off me!"
Pie clapped her hands, and commanded the little creatures sharply. "Come now off of him! You're scaring him."
Instantly the chao released him, yet he could sense they felt disappointed that he didn't automatically love them back. He turned about to snap that he wasn't afraid of chao when he heard the voice of an elderly woman cackle in laughter.
"Never heard of anything alive that was afraid of being loved," the voice said. Shadow turned to see Pie's grandmother. Where Pie had three tails this woman had seven. For no reason he could understand that put him on his guard. Her pale, almost white blue fur seemed a little ratty in old age. Down each of her tails ran a pale gold stripe. In her youth she must have been quiet a beautiful creature, and even in her old age she had a beauty about her and an air of power that made you stop and pay attention to her.
Around her eyes she wore a deep red rag. She's blind, Shadow thought, but he sensed that she didn't need her eyes, and she confirmed that when she raised her hand, and beckoned him to come forward.
"Come here child, come here. Let me see if I can get a feel for ye," she said, her voice raspy, but at the same time full of strength. For no reason at all Shadow felt compelled to obey her. Even though she was blind he felt vulnerable in front of Pie's grandmother. She held herself in a way that told him power dwelled within her, a power he didn't understand, but he knew that power needed to be respected.
"So you're the one my Peaches needed to hunt down hey?" She said chuckling. "Can see why the other called a watch on you hedgehog. The Chaos energy is strong in you, stronger than in any I've touched before save our runner," she chuckled. "But he was born to power and made the Chaos his own. You my lad were never born at all."
How the hell does she know that? The shocked thought came to him. He opened his mouth to speak, but she had more to say. "I surprised you, hey lad? Don't know why. I can feel the demons running around inside of you boy. I can feel them in your blood, and I can hear them in your mind. Now the ones in your blood, that's you and you're controlling them fine, but the ones in your mind…Well you're the one who has to fix those boy. Ain't no one who can do that for you."
Demons in my blood… The ones in his mind he knew all too well, and struggled with still, but the demons in in blood. Did she mean Black Doom? How in two worlds could she know that? And if she knew that, what else does she know about me?
Suddenly a question he wanted answered all his life fell into his mind, and traveled to his mouth before he could stop it. "If you know all that about me woman, you must tell me, I need to know, what am I?"
She laughed. "You both are and are not what you think you are, child," she said. "A child of three bodies, two worlds, and one mind, you and your reflection knew that the moment you laid eyes on each other lad."
Me and my reflection knew… He wasn't exactly sure what the old woman meant, except for that one time him and Sonic discussed….. "Wait, are you saying that Sonic and I were right? That I'm…" The words caught in his throat. Could that even be possible?
"Three bodies, two worlds, one mind," the woman repeated. "That hole between worlds has been cut more times than you and your friends know lad," she said. "You belong here as much as you do there. Your base might have been small, but your soul's father knew where to find ways to make your stronger, then he went, and found ways to make you strongest."
Black Doom, he acknowledged. So Doctor Gerald knew of Sonic's world, and some forgotten Mobian Hedgehog combined with the Earth Hedgehog and Black Doom to create him.
"Never forget that demon's in you too, lad," she continued. "Ye needs him to make the Chaos flow. Ye needs to balance your darkness, and your light to create the Chaos energy."
Great I'm the living embodiment of one of Rouge's favorite movies, he thought to himself. He still wanted to know how she knew about Doctor Gerald and Black Doom.
"You need to take care of those demons in your mind boy," she tells him. "They're what's keeping you from living in peace."
"I know," he said, not sure why he felt like confessing this to the old woman. "There is much within my mind that is still lost. Fighting Black Doom was easy. Fighting what's in my mind is much harder."
"True enough," she agreed. "But you can win that battle, if ye wants to. Opening yer heart is the first step lad. If'in you do that, you'll find a strength that nothin' can stop."
He nodded accepting her words. He didn't know if he understood it, but he felt like he heard part of that speech before. Open your heart. "Thank you for the advice," he said bowing his head a little in acknowledgement. "I need to be going now."
"Weather's mighty fierce, lad," Pie's grandmother said chuckling. "Ye might want to stay the night. We've got plenty of room."
The idea of spending the night here in a chao garden sent a shiver up and down his spine. And how does she know what the weather is outside of this pocket of existence anyway? "Thank you for the offer, but I really must go," he said trying not to sound rude. Before she could say anything else he fled the gardens, and went back out through the porthole.
Coming Soon Chapter 15
Alone in the night.
"You heard your grandmother. There are things within my mind that I need to be in control of." Shadow explained.
"The Demons?" Pie asked. When Shadow nodded she said, "I didn't understand a lot of that. Why are there demons in your blood and in your mind?"
"I've been through a lot," he said with a sigh.
"Like what?" She asks.
He didn't even realize he was curling up tighter with stress until she put a blanket around his shoulders. He felt his stomach churning, but for some reason the usual "I don't want to talk about it," refused to come out of his mouth. "It's not a good story," he chose instead.
"Then maybe it's a story you need to tell," she answers.
"It's long," he countered.
"It's a long night."
"I don't know if I can," he said, putting his head down on his knees.
"I can feel you a little, again," she tells him. She reached out to take his hand, and leaned up against his body "You're afraid."
Shadow found it harder and harder to come up with excuses. "You may not like me very much after this story," he said.
"Everyone has ghosts they have to face," she says. "Close your eyes. Start at the beginning."