Catqueen 58: Omg lolol thx for the review!!!! Lol. Glad you want more lol yeah Silver is such a sweet, innocent little hedgehog.

crimson-obsidian-rose: Yeah Silver definitely wants to let it all out but no one seems to care at the moment. Thx for the review! You rock!

Blue Kaous: Yeah i know, my spelling and grammer can be utterly dreadful. Thanks for spotting that and i love your critical approach. It really helps.

Here's the next chappie:

Chapter 12: Robotnik

'I am thirst, spearheaded hunger
Sacrament and pain
Nails raked in savagery.'– Cradle of Filth – Queen Of Winter, Throned

*******

The second Shadow entered Sally Acorn's tent, the squirrel pasted a grin and said, "oh good, your back. Shadow, can you watch over Silver for me? I need some shut eye."

The Ultimate Life form could not hide the horror on his face. "Come again?"

She coughed to clear her throat. "Shadow, know your place."

The hedgehog squirmed from where he stood. Then, as if something gave way from within him, he stiffly bowed and murmured, "princess."

"Better." She lit another candle, then stretched and yawned. "I have been up who knows how many hours. I need my rest. You can take care of him, can't you?" She pointed at Silver who was busy flicking through a picture book. He was probably listening to their whole conversation and not paying any attention to the book at all. "You understand each other, right?"

Shadow wanted to laugh. He wanted to bring out a blade and cut his own head off. Instead, he merely nodded and said, "any news, princess, on the other casualties?"

She shook her head. "I used my communicator earlier, and there were two casualties exactly one mile from here. They both died this morning. Eggman isn't making casualties. He's killing practically every victim he can find. It makes me sick."

And now I have to baby-sit the only survivor. He crossed his arms. "How goes the battle?"

Sally sighed. "I had to sent six of the elite guards out there to help."

"What?" That meant there was only three royal guards out there, and three was not enough. "Do you realize how vulnerable you are now? If so much as one robot comes this way…"

"I know." She suddenly sounded very sad. "But those people out there, my people, are losing the battle and they need those guards more than me." She started putting away medicine bottles and throwing dirty syringes into a bucket to be disposed of. "How's Sonic?"

"Sleeping. I told him to rest."

She nodded. "I would have done the same thing. He needs it. We all do. How long do you think we'll hold in this fight?"

Shadow folded his arms and brooded. "I honestly can't say for sure." His personal backup forces had helped substantially. But when Silver got brought down, and both he and Sonic withdrew from the fight, they had been bitterly losing. Shadow couldn't uphold his quality of fighting power forever. He was fatigued. "If they breach the border, and break our forces," he was saying, "then Robotnik will dissect our homes and families. There will be no stopping him." Robotnik may have pulled back before. He may have reconsidered his options and stopped the fight himself. As Sally had mentioned before, Eggman had to rule over something. It was no good killing your slaves and then having no one but yourself to do your chores. But Sonic and everyone else had made the evil doctor very angry. They had opposed him by formulating an army of their own, and had attacked his precious head quarters. Eggman was probably so angry, he was melting with ire in his fat-chair.

"So, I suggest you take a nap Shadow, while keeping an eye on Silver. Tails contacted me earlier. His going to get a new plane."

How? Shadow wanted to ask, but didn't. Silver interrupted him. "Princess, how long will you be gone?"

"Four hours, Silver." She threw a hairbrush into a duffel bag and some sleeping pills. Then she gave them a courteous bow and left the tent. Shadow snorted, then turned on Silver. "Care to explain what you said to me earlier? About your time travel and collecting all seven emeralds?"

"I don't feel like talking." And he turned back to his book.

Shadow wanted to hit him. Here he was, being looked after and he didn't show one ounce of his appreciation by telling them why he was here!

Shadow grabbed the chair Sonic often used and unfavorably sat down. It was warm in the tent, compared to the snow-laden world outside. And no matter how hard he listened; he could not hear the fighting outside. All he could hear was the constant rasp of the breathing machine attached to Silver.

He turned and asked a little hurtfully, "how's your new bullet hole?"

Silver grimaced and shrugged but continued looking at the pages in his book. "I wouldn't know. I don't look at it, but thanks."

And he knew why Silver didn't want to look at it. The blood had still managed to seep through all the layers Sally had placed over it.

"Didn't she stitch it?"

Again, he shrugged. Then he asked, "why did you start this war?"

Shadow lowered his chin so that it pressed down on the white tuft of fur on his chest. "Sonic started it. He thought it would fix our problems. But it didn't. It's got us nowhere. But I've stood by him. We had to do something, Silver. Robotnik can't rule forever."

Silver turned another page. Then he closed it. "I've run out of books to read. Tell me about the chaos emeralds."

"I thought you knew how to use them?"

"No. I only know how to travel through time with them."

"I can't."

Silver looked dejected. "Why not?"

"Because you're too young to understand."

"But Amy knows! She's younger!"

"She doesn't know anything about them."

"Fine!" Silver sniped, and he put his book down and rose the blankets to rest over his sternum. "The least you can do is just talk to me. Say anything. Or read me a bedtime story."

Shadow thought he was going to vomit. "In your dreams." He retorted darkly. "Why don't you tell me why you're even here? In this time?"

"I've already told you." Was his answer.

Shadow stood up and grabbed Silver by the tuft of his white fur. "Sonic told me that you told him I was your ancestor. What rubbish! Tell me the truth!"

"But I have!" The respiratory system pulsed with loud noise as Silver took panicked breaths, "everything I've said is the truth!"

"No it isn't! I can't have kids! So how come you exist?"

Silver didn't have the strength to struggle. Instead he yelled sharply, "Sally! Help! He's trying to kill me!"

Shadow reluctantly let go of him. "I'm not trying to kill you." He replied bitterly, "if I was trying, you would have been dead the moment I walked into this stupid tent."

"Then why?"

"I saved you. I used your chaos emerald to stop the bleeding. Thanks to me, you're still alive. Now do I deserve an explanation as to why you are here?"

Silver rose his arms in front of his chest to defend himself. "How come? That's impossible!"

"It isn't. I did it."

Surgical knives from a stand beside Silver's bed leapt up into the air and poised their pointy tips at Shadow. They glowed a lime green.

Shadow only narrowed his eyes. "Using your psychokinesis will only weaken your condition. I wouldn't try it."

Silver didn't look like he was listening. The bucket of old syringes joined the brigade of knives so that they floated in the air delicately, waiting for a command. "You don't care." He panted, "I came to the past to save you, Shadow, and this is how you repay me? Get out now before I hurt you!"

Shadow remained where he was. "I can't leave. Sally gave me strict instructions to supervise your ass."

"That's it!" The knives and the bucket were thrown like shrapnel at Shadow. But the terrible effort it cost on Silver was in vain. Shadow merely warped in the air, then reappeared in the exact same place after the debris hit the tent wall. Several of the surgical knives had got wedged into the fabric. Once the bucket had landed, it oozed with needles. While Silver was wheezing pensively for air, Shadow grabbed a knife and pressed it up against his throat. "Now tell me!" He snapped softly.

"Or what? Just remove my breathing mask, that'll probably kill me. You don't need to shed blood."

Shadow smirked, "thanks for the tip." He pressed the knife harder. He had no intention to physically hurt Silver, he just wanted him to profess.

"All right, I'll tell you, just get that knife away from me!" He choked, eyes wide. Shadow relented and dropped the knife. "When I said that you do die, I meant it! Honest!" He added when the black hedgehog raised his lip in a snarl, "but you were supposed to die minutes after I came, because I journeyed to the point of when you were about to die, but you didn't." He rubbed his neck, though there wasn't a single cut on it.

"So the past has already changed then?"

"I guess so."

"Then why does my death supposedly change everything? Why are you here?"

"When you died, Sonic lost the will to fight. And if I were to cut straight to the point, Robotnik won. He managed to get all six emeralds in my time, but he never found the seventh, because I found it first. When he found out, these robot troops came for me, so I escaped into the past to prevent it from ever happening."

Shadow frowned. "Is that all?"

"Yes."

He walked over and sat down on the edge of his bed. "Then what about all this stuff about Blaze? And you collecting all seven?"

"Just wishful thinking."

"That was stupid. So you did feed us a bunch of lies, just so you could get your hands on those emeralds. You're as bad as Robotnik." At this, Silver slumped in his bed, suddenly looking smaller and frailer.

He stood up again and started to leave. Silver rose a hand up as if he could stop him. "Wait, where are you going?"

Shadow glared hatefully at him. His blood-red orbs pierced his soul. "I'm going to tell Sonic everything you've told me. You can look after yourself."

***

Though Sonic had escaped from the physical battle, he could not escape the battle playing over and over in his dreams. Robotnik's dark, soulless eyes were everywhere. His walrus cheeks wobbled with his laughter, and his skin folded and oozed like lumps of dough.

"Fight me Sonic! Fight me!"

Sonic ran in the darkness, and he pulverized robots as he went, but the memory of his spines still hurting carried on with him, and the pain only seemed to increase after each attack.

Finally, Robotnik re-materialized himself from the darkness and stood there like a proud Emperor. He had a long blood red cape, with shoes and gloves to match. His narrow, dark eyes however, seemed to bleed darkness. "So glad you could come. Coffee?" Out of nowhere, he produced a steaming cup of what was presumably coffee. He held it delicately in his hand. Sonic shook his head. Robotnik didn't seem too offended. He merely threw it in the blackness whereupon it simply vanished again. "Now, where were we? Ah yes, the battle." His big fat belly rumbled as he spoke. Sonic stayed far back, and he ground his feet onto the black floor. "Do you really wish to waste more lives upon my armies? Why don't you just retreat entirely Sonic and call it a day? Before you lose someone you really care about."

"I want you dead, Eggman."

The obese human chortled thickly. "Ha ha, ahh Sonic, I see you haven't lost your sense of humor. Good for you. Now, see what you have done." He lifted his ruby cape and an image came to light within the cape. It was almost as if Sonic were peering into a mirror. There were flashes of light, guns, blood. There was no sound. The oval image provided him with faces, the detail of the wounds sustained, and the hard storm of gunfire as it rained down upon animals. Then, as quickly as it was shown, Eggman concealed it again and Sonic was left to face nothing but the fat giant.

"See? I told you!" The fat man said, his voice as thick as congealed jelly, "now why don't you just give up?"

"I'll never give up!" His eyes shone resolutely. "Never."

Eggman frowned and his smile was smudged away almost instantly. "So be it." From out of nowhere, a cold wind gripped Sonic, and when he turned around, he found himself standing in the middle of a snowy valley. The hard pinpricks of ice and snow melted into his fur. The harsh weather gorged down upon the hills and shrubs. When he looked back, he saw that Robotnik had gone.

Sonic opened his eyes and rubbed away the sleep. He ached. His very bones seemed to grind against one another. A few hours of sleep felt like it hadn't done him any good at all.

The tent he was in seemed so gloomy and cold. One of the corner flaps on the edge of the tent had opened, allowing a steady stream of snow to come bundling in like confetti. He yawned, threw his arms open to stretch them, then managed to struggle out of his makeshift bed.

The dreams echoed. Eggman's fat, moist voice whistled behind his ears like a dark promise.

He closed the flap and held it shut with a handy stone. Then he gulped down ice cold water and finished his ration of grapes and a wrapped portion of salted beef. The food did little to ameliorate him.

He stepped outside. He must have slept the entire night away. The dawn was just beginning, and its brilliant hues of dark crimson and brazen violet set a dark cast over the valley. The battle was still going on, the gunfire was less so, and the snow was dark with the stain of not oil, but blood.

He looked across at the infirmary tent and saw Shadow getting a lecture from Princess Sally. Shadow was bruised from recent fighting, but right now he was undergoing a battle of patience as Sally shouted and snapped at him. But what pleased him the most was that Silver had come outside to grin at Shad's dilemma. He was standing! And he looked so much better. Sonic wistfully came over himself. When Sally noticed him, she stopped in mid-sentence.

"Sonic? Did you have a good rest?" She asked.

"I did." He glanced over at Shadow. "What mess have you got into this time?"

Sally answered for him. "He left Silver on his own. Which was fine, considering the fact that he can stand."

"I have limits though," Silver said with a wink, "my breathing tubes won't let me go any further."

"Good." Said Shadow darkly. Sally stepped on his foot. He swallowed down a curse.

"You sleep now, Shadow, and think what you have done," Sonic said teasingly, "and try not to upset anyone else!"

"I'll try if I don't have to wipe everyone's noses!" Shadow stalked off. Sonic and Sally giggled softly. But, after a short laugh, Sally looked sullen and forlorn again.

"We have to move." She said. "We're losing. The fighting is getting too close."

"Why don't you use my chaos emerald?" Silver asked hoarsely, "we can beat them!"

"What makes you think you're going back out there?" Sally snapped at him gruffly. To add to her words, she shoved him back into the tent. He didn't come back out.

TBC