Shadow Saves Them All

Chapter 16

I pushed the rubble off my body and saw my surroundings. The entire workshop had been destroyed. Elves were picking each other up of the ground and trying to heal each other. I looked around desperately for the hedgehogs and saw them helping Santa out of some rubble. I ran over and picked up the rubble off of him as Shadow and Sonic pulled him up.

(Perspective change)

"Ho, ho, (cough) oh…" Santa tried to say as his broken body was carried by our heroes to a table. They set him down gently as Silver limped over to them. Elves began to gather around the wounded Santa, with concerned looks on their faces. Such a joyous place was destroyed in no time, it was just… wrong. Some elves even started to cry watching Santa struggle to keep conscious. Smoke and dust occupied the area, it was musty and cold…

"Please… Sonic, everyone…" he said. Everyone leaned in to listen better.

"Save… Christmas…" he passed out. The elves scurried over to the table with medical equipment. They quickly injected him with fluids labeled; "Magic," and his wounds slowly healed up. All the elves breathed a sigh of relief. Santa was okay, and that was all that mattered to them. A small elf walked up to Dylan and held up some shredded teal material.

"It was a bomb," he said to him. Dylan recognized the material perfectly too, it was the same as Silver's backpack.

…

"I knew it!" Shadow jumped at him and pinned him on the ground, Silver struggled and panicked as Shadow began to beat silver one punch after another.

"I knew there was a reason I didn't like you!" he said with fury.

"Please stop! I don't know what you mean! Stop! STOP!" Dylan grabbed Shadows fist before he could make another punch and simply told Shadow; "Stop,"

Shadow stared at Dylan for a minute and then let Silver go. A moment of tension relief went by as everyone calmed down.

"Okay," Dylan started.

"Silver… did you know there was a bomb in your backpack?"

"Of course not!"

"LIAR!"

"He's not lying Shadow!"

"Oh really? What makes you so sure?"

"I can tell when he's lying, he has a tell," Shadow was silent.

"…What is it?" he asked.

"Whenever Silver lies he tries to act all cool, he would deny it once and then any further accusation would be ignored. Sonic never really lies to his friends, and when you lie Shadow, it's impossible to tell because you're always in that dark mood," No one spoke, it was all true, someone was a little too analytical.

"Silver, did you leave your backpack anywhere? And when was the last time you checked its contents?" Silver thought for a moment.

"Well… the last time I checked it was when you guys went on ahead of me leaving the hospital. There was no bomb, there was just some junk. I ran to catch up with you guys when I ran by a woman and her baby," This caught Dylan's attention.

"The woman and the baby, what happened when you ran by them?"

"Well, the kid threw his toy on the ground and I tripped and fell. My stuff fell out of my backpack and the lady helped my with them," he was ninety percent sure he knew what had happened, but just to be sure he kept pressing the story.

"The woman," Silver listened as intently as everyone else.

"Was she wearing a pink dress? Blonde hair, and was she pushing her kid in a stroller?" Silver was surprised.

"Yeah, that's right. Why?" It had been so obvious. If Eggmans plans had failed, then everyone would want to head to the north pole and investigate to make sure Santa was okay. So Eggman planted that bomb on Silver as a failsafe. He hoped to destroy the toys and Santa, and he succeeded. And to make things even more painful, all of this was done by them. They were pawns in Eggmans hands…

No.

"No," Dylan said. Everyone looked at him.

"No, there's no way Eggman is that smart," he began to say.

"Waddya mean Dylan?" Sonic asked.

"Eggman has never been this crafty, but a multi outcome plan like this is all too familiar to me, he's working with someone, someone really bad,"

"John right?" Sonic said. Dylan looked at him surprised, as well as everyone else.

"You told me that John gets to go 'Shock and Awe' on this world if evil wins, the perfect reason for him to work with Egghead," he smiled at Dylan.

"But it's not too late to save Christmas and foil Eggman's plans,"

"What do you mean Sonic?" everyone asked at once. He walked over to a pile of rubble and pulled off some old boards and found a hatch labeled; "Presents,"

"Last time I was here, I helped Santa construct a whole safety bunker to store the presents after they were made. So incase anything like this happened, the presents would be safe,"

"I get it," Shadow said.

"So then we can deliver them to everyone since Santa's out of commission, right?" Sonic nodded at him.

"Yes sir Shadow old buddy!" The plan was simple and the true enemy had been revealed, but there was still one flaw preventing Dylan from rekindling his faith in hope.

"What about the reindeer? They were injured too," Crud, he was right. Without reindeer they couldn't get the presents around the world, they were stuck.

"I don't know what to say there," Sonic said sadly. Dylan knew what to say though.

"I do," they looked to him with not much hope.

"We find a way to stop them!" he shouted, destroying the dark aura surrounding everyone.

"Sure the chips are down! Sure they've had a plan for everything so far! But Dammit if we give up then there's no hope left! Even if our chance for success is 0.1%, if we give up then that 0.1% chance becomes a solid zero! Now I'm not about to let that sociopath take over this world and destroy it! Now let me ask you guys something, do you ever wonder why we're here?"

No one spoke.

"It's one of life's great mysteries isn't it?" Silver said.

…

"No!" Dylan said.

"I mean why are you here. YOU specifically. Shadow, you could've left everyone anytime you wanted to, you know it and I know it, but you're still here. Silver! Blaze is in some other universe, and your future is restored, so why are you here? Sonic…"

"…"

"It's really good to know you're still here Sonic,"

"Thanks, I'm really loving this speech,"

Dylan resumed.

"Maybe you're all here because you want to be, maybe you're all here because you fit in here, or maybe your just here to save a friend, but for whatever reason you're still HERE,"

No one spoke, or even moved. Until Silver began to slowly clap his hands. Shadow joined in and Sonic did too until the entire area was filled with cheering elves. Dylan heard a loving voice whisper into his ears; 'You're inspiring,'

"Ho Ho Ho!" he heard Santa say. He sat up, still injured, but greatly less so.

"Rousing speech young man!"

"Thanks," he sighed. Santa put his game face on.

"Alright! Elves!" he said. The elves lined up like army troops.

"We need to make a vehicle that can let these four travel the world in one night!"

The all saluted simultaneously.

"Santa yes Santa!" their high voices all squeaked. They all salvaged tools and materials and got to work on building the vehicle in no time. Their faith restored, they were working faster than ever before.

"Three." Dylan said to Santa.

"Hmm? Three people. What about you?" he asked clutching his wounded side. Dylan turned and looked out in the distance, he concentrated hard and saw it, somewhere. John was preparing a large force of enemies to destroy this world.

"You have twelve hours," his words rang through Dylan's ears. He checked his watch; 11:49 P.M. Eleven minutes until the world went to hell.

"Sonic, Shadow, Silver," he said to them without turning. His brown eyes focused on his target miles away.

"Distribute the presents around the world, I guarantee John's troops won't interfere with you,"

"How do you know for sure?" Sonic asked.

"Easy," Dylan turned to him.

"Because there is no way in HELL I'm gonna let him hurt anyone here. That is a promise,"