A/N: hiya all, sorry for abandoning this fic. It wasn't what i intended and full time jobs suuuck. Anyway here is the next instalment. I hope you enjoy. Sorry again for the lateness.
Disclaimer: We do not own Sonic the hedgehog.
Lol.
Chapter 9: Horror
'What wilt thou do?'– Twelfth Night – William Shakespeare
Shadow fought the black sea of robots fervidly. But his energy reserves were depleting.
His chaos spears cut through the machines cleanly like the blast from a shotgun, yet their numbers did not falter. As the smaller, weaker ones fell, it left bigger, stronger ones in their places. The E-2000 series harnessed deadly lasers that cut through flesh and bone like a knife could cut through bread. As fatigue settled over Shadow, his reactions were less so. He could no longer judge where each enemy would be, or how they would attack. This fed his anger, and thus allowing him to unleash devastating attacks such as the acclaimed chaos blast. The blood red aura of doom spread out like a scarlet wave and snared everything in its grasp. After the damage was done, the robots on the outside perimeter of the blast's range that were unharmed, came at him when he was vulnerable, and he accumulated many cuts and slashes this way.
Humph! I die everyday.
No! Listen to me! I've come from the…
Yes, future… I know. Don't you have anything else better to do with your time?
Shadow! Please!
Worry about your own damn present!
I am! That's why I'm here!
The words haunted him like a ghost. What if Silver had been right? Silver was a pup, a naïve little insolent baby hedgehog that had no place in this war, but what if he had been right?
The sweet saccharine of doubt dulled his killer instinct and a powerful badnik with long arms kicked him in the side. He fell into another robot, and his soft body ached with wounds. The badnik aimed, and fired with deadly intent. But just before Shadow was hit, the hedgehog warped into thin air and then teleported himself ten meters away from the horde. His breath steamed on the cold winter air. The sun was going down. Darkness was just minutes away.
The nightfighters aren't going to be any good.
Shadow and the others had been the main brunt of the force. They were the heroes. And if they couldn't hold the enemies back, the nightfighters certainly couldn't. They were overwhelmed. It was time to retreat.
His voice barked command, power.
"Retreat!"
He screamed it, he impelled it.
He joined his forces. Many lay dead. He avoided treading on so many corpses. They would look worse by morning and for this he was glad it was winter. The gelid environment would slow the rotting process.
"RETREAT!"
***
Sonic broke from his maddening anger just as the sun went down. The last slither of sunlight disappeared and the blackness of night reigned supreme. And even amongst the crushing and lashing of gunfire, and the roars of battle, he could hear Shadow scream at them to retreat.
The blue hedgehog tottered in one place for a moment, holding his aching head and wondering why there were so many broken badniks around him. Did he defeat them? If he did, why couldn't he remember?
He was sweaty and enervated. It was night. Why was there such a long gap in his memory?
Well, whatever had happened, every badnik within a mile of Sonic lay defeated. It was but a fraction of Robotnik's force, but it delayed their assault. And with so many down, it lifted Sonic's spirits slightly.
"Retreat!" The chorus of the regress spread. The command reached every inch of Sonic's force. Every caption or warrior passed it down until the whole force commenced the regress. But as they fled, the robots took advantage and pulled many of them down. A massacre ensued. Sonic was on his feet and flew to aid them. There were just too many. For some reason, whatever he had done earlier (which he could not remember) had made him more tired than he had inchoately feared. He couldn't repress their attack as he had wanted. He saved a few, but only a few. And he realized with horror that the snow under his feet was bright red instead of comely white.
Oh dear Gods on high…
Was this what Robotnik intended? To kill and robotise every last living thing on Mobius?
He knew then that somehow he needed to get to the evil genius. He needed to kill Eggman. If he went down, surely that would end this war? And the robots would cease the fight?
It wasn't as easy as he thought. Getting to Eggman was like trying to find the center of a maze that was laced with deadly bobby traps. To even get close, Sonic had to go through the army and get into the war factory. But there was also a big chance that Robotnik wasn't even there. He could be watching this whole war in the Sandy Desert, sipping on cold tea and sitting under the sun with an umbrella propped up to allow some comforting shade.
Maybe… maybe there was a way to find him… and he would need a chaos emerald for that. Silver had the green chaos emerald.
He went to turn back, and headed for the tent. His force was retreating, and it looked like Shadow had taken up role as leader for now. Who knew what would follow next.
Sonic sped all the way back to find Sally.