Chapter 8: The Tragic Reunion
Shadow the Hedgehog stands on the rounded platform summoned to him by Dr. Eggman, his body carried through the skies above the Egg Continent as he makes his way towards an unknown destination. The black hedgehog, with his arms folded in front of his chest, glares up at the Final Fortress in the distance and quietly says to himself "Doctor…" with a slight tone of discontent in his voice.
The platform reaches its end destination, a patch of diamond shaped metal surrounded by an electric fence as tall as Shadow himself. Jumping off onto this new platform, the black hedgehog glances back briefly and watches as the platform he was just on flies off into the distance. Now unfurling his arms and turning back towards the hallway in the distance, Shadow firmly slants his eyebrows down and slowly walks forward without saying a word. The doors blocking the way to the hallway swing open, revealing a darkened passage behind it.
As Shadow heads through this hallway without any light to help him see where he is going, he puts his left hand against the wall so he'll know when the passage makes a sudden turn. The speakers obscured off in the distance activate, filling the hallways with the echoing taunts of the nefarious doctor Eggman. "Come now Shadow, do you really think you can go through with vengeance against me?"
The black hedgehog says nothing in response to the doctor's comments. In spite of his earlier stint of anger, he knew now that he was playing by Eggman's rules, so he couldn't afford to be even the slightest bit reckless like Sonic was likely going to be. Shadow slowly continues to walk on ahead as the hallway slants downward, leading the hedgehog deeper and deeper into the doctor's grandiose Egg Continent.
"Hehehehe…You know Shadow, you and I are the last remnants of our grandfather's legacy. If you kill me to exact your revenge, then what he would he think of you?" Eggman states afterwards, which causes Shadow to slightly scowl this time around in response. But the black hedgehog takes a slow and quiet breath to calm himself down as he pauses, and he continues on his way while trying his hardest to drown out the doctor.
But Eggman had one last comment in mind to rile up the emotions of the usually stoic black hedgehog. It wasn't too hard to imagine the vile grin on Eggman's face as he slowly and piercingly said to Shadow "And what would Maria think if you killed me?"
The mere mention of that name caused Shadow to pause once more as images of what he saw while mind-controlled by Eggman flash through his head, causing him to grimace in pain against his will as he kneels down and clenches his right hand against his head, keeping the other one against the wall as he tries to fight against the imagery. Focusing in on the remaining echoes of the sounds the doctor made, Shadow slowly lifts his head up and pulls his right hand behind him, charging up a bit of yellow energy around it before he launches a swift Chaos Spear towards a speaker in the corner ahead of him.
The speaker is instantly destroyed, the feedback caused by its end filling the hallway for a few moments as the sparks fill the hallway briefly with light. Shadow, without Eggman's voice inciting his emotions, rises back onto his feet and lets out a relieved sigh. But before he can move even one step forward, another speaker activates in the hallway much to the black hedgehog disdain. "Hehehe, hit a nerve, did I now? You probably need to take your aggression out on something, so just keep going on ahead and I will deliver you a means of releasing your anger."
Eggman shuts off the speakers at that point, leaving Shadow to glare up in disdain as the fading light from the sparks leave him in the darkness once more. The black hedgehog then focuses on ahead and continues walking cautiously, winding a corner and continuing to descend further down into the depths of the Egg Continent. This far down, the area starts to grow colder, the metal on the walls feeling like raw ice even with the protection of Shadow's gloves helping him out. With each breath from here on out releasing a bit of frosty steam, the black hedgehog continues on his way and waits for the moment where he will finally be out of this very long hallway.
Shadow walks for another good two minutes before he finally escapes the hallway and enters a wide-open, hexagon shaped area lit up by tubes of flowing magma on each corner of the room. There is a door on each wall, all of them sealed up by pressurized locks that not even Shadow felt he'd be able to break with all of his strength. Though it seemed at first that the black hedgehog had arrived at a dead end, he knew for a fact that Eggman purposely wanted him in such an expansive space to face whatever he had prepared specifically for him.
Shadow stands still and examines the two doors in the upper left and right corners as they decompress and slowly begin to open up. Carried into the room by rounded stands clamped to the bottom are egg-shaped pods that look much like the one that Shadow was kept inside. The black hedgehog's nerves tense up as he looks at the capsules, and he thinks to himself "No…He couldn't have…"
A hammer comes out of the walls above both of the capsules to crack them open with a single, precise blow, and as the green fog descends from the air from where the capsules once were Shadow scowls at the doctor's vile decision. He recognized the figures beyond the fog instantly, and like himself both were covered with the purple mind-control fog around their heads.
On the left capsule was a female bat wearing a skintight black tube-style body suit with a large pink heart-shaped breast plate, long white gloves, and white thigh-high boots with pink hearts on the toes. Her boots have metal heels and soles, suggesting that kicks are how she fights with. She has long eyelashes and wears blue eye-shadow, both of which are very prominent thanks to the dazed look in her eyes.
On the right capsule is a bulky armed robot with a slick black and red color scheme with a couple yellow details near his hands and head. The robot had long silver metal claws that could easily spin around in the confines of his cylinder shaped arms that were attached to his broad, rectangular shoulders. The left shoulder had a red Greek Omega symbol. His feet were flat yet long enough to keep his massive body stable on the ground along with the solid joints that creak to life as the robot activates. With red eyes flaring alit above the wide, heavy main body, the robot lifts its right arm up and points it at Shadow.
The speakers hidden up in the ceiling activate, filling the room with Eggman's glorious hammy voice as he exclaims with glee "Ohohohohoh! Well then Shadow, if you still need to take your aggression on someone, you are more than welcome to do so on your closest friends!"
This very act that the doctor has performed, malicious in both nature and tone, breaks Shadow the Hedgehog's normally stoic demeanor as he tightens his fists and exclaims with a growling prelude "EGGMAN, I WILL HUNT YOU DOWN AND KILL YOU FOR THIS!"
The very joy brought on by hearing the normally troublesome Shadow cracking apart at the seams with anger causes Eggman to break into a prolonged streak of laughter that lasts a good twenty seconds, the repeated echoes of its existence chilling the black hedgehog to the core even after it ends. A few remnants of laughter fill the room as Eggman struggles to compose himself, but as the final giggles leave his mouth he says to the black hedgehog "Hehehe…No Shadow, you are the only one who is going to die here today. Rouge, E-123 Omega…Finish this nuisance off for me, if you'd please."
Rogue the Bat and Omega perk their heads up and look at Shadow, both of them saying respectively in regards to the commands Eggman was making them hear "Right away." "Affirmative, Eggman."
The words of the robot hurt Shadow the most. For most of their time together, the black hedgehog knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that Omega would never show even a single bit of loyalty towards Eggman. To have that freedom robbed by this insane act of mind control made Shadow hesitate to start the battle for a few crucial moments, something that neither Rouge nor Omega was going to wait for him to overcome before they attacked.
Omega pulled his claws back into his arm and called forth a gatling gun, firing rapidly upon his comrade as Eggman wished for him to do with a storm of bullets. Shadow, hearing the whirr of Omega's weapon a mere second before it fired, snapped out of his hesitation and quickly leaped to the right, latching himself against a wall before jumping off of it as Omega swings his arm so his bullets follow the movements of the black hedgehog.
The durable walls in this room are riddled with bullet holes, showing just how impressive the robot's firepower was and emphasizing just how even the slightest bit of hesitation will cause Shadow to meet his end. Following up from his wall jump, the black hedgehog lands on the ground and prepares to dash at Omega before the robot can lock back onto him and aim his gatling at his direction.
But as he increases his speed with the help of his rocket shoes Rouge swoops down from the air and strikes Shadow in the front of his head with the sole of her right shoe. The black hedgehog is blown back through room, but even with how tough the bat's shoes are Shadow quickly recovers and uses a quick burst of heat from his rocket shoes to flip himself around and skid along the metal ground for a few good feet. Planting one hand against the ground as he recovers, the black hedgehog stares up at disbelief at Rouge without saying a word.
Instead, as the bat slowly flaps her wings and lands on the ground with a sorrowful look in her eyes, she says to her comrade "Shadow…Why? Why would you betray us?"
The black hedgehog murmurs out quietly "Rouge…" but before he could say anymore Omega rushes forward and brushes Rouge aside as gently as he could with his arms, pointing both of his arms forward and saying in a dutifully angered yet appropriately robotic tone of voice "For the glory of the Eggman Empire, the traitor Shadow the Hedgehog shall be terminated! Weapon systems set to 'LETHAL', target locked…FIRE!"
Pulling both his hands into his arms, Omega launches a massive flamethrower that spreads out across the room in front of him, but before the wave of scorching fire burns Shadow to nothingness the black hedgehog activates Chaos Control to warp himself behind both Omega and Rouge in an instant. The robot recognizes the departure of Shadow's life signature from his scanners, and quickly ends up correcting this matter by turning around after shutting off his flamethrowers and pushing his claws back out.
Rouge follows the robot's movements and looks at the black hedgehog, who looks at both of his comrades with a hesitant look of disgust on his face. It shouldn't be too hard to figure out that most of his disgust is directed towards Eggman, but even with his emotions in a flux as he is simultaneously thinking about the doctor and his two mind-controlled friends he tries to break through to either one of them by stating "Rouge, Omega, snap out of it, I'm not your enemy!"
Rouge replies by saying "You destroyed G.U.N.'s HQ and ran off swearing to end all humans…The Shadow I know would never do anything like that. But you aren't really Shadow…You're just a pawn of the Black Arms, an alien conqueror and nothing else, right?" Her voice was so monotone and yet despite knowing that the words were born of Eggman's mind-control they hurt all the same.
Omega goes on to mention in the same tone of voice "All who oppose the glorious Eggman are my enemies. I have no 'allies' or 'friends', especially not you, Shadow the Hedgehog."
Shadow grits his teeth and curses Eggman in his mind as he looks at his closest comrades and says to them in as honest of a voice as he can muster "Then I have no choice…I will have to knock both of you out to free you from the doctor's control." While his words dripped with subtle melancholy, the black hedgehog knew that he would have to live up to what he said now. Omega was nearly as strong as he was, and Rouge was quick on her feet and was able to hit hard if given the chance.
Knowing their strength because of all the times they had worked together, Shadow could not afford even a single mistake, or Eggman's earlier words would ring true. Not only that, but Rouge and Omega would be kept under the doctor's nefarious control forever. And Omega especially wouldn't be able to live himself knowing that he was forced to work for the man that he so desperately loathed. "Here I go!" Shadow proclaims as he finishes thinking everything over on what he has to do.
In this time period, Rouge has reached into her suit and pulled out three glowing purple bombs that he has slipped between her fingers. With a quick throw the bat tosses them at her comrade just seconds before they were ready to detonate. Shadow leaps into the air right as the bombs detonate, but Rouge follows his movements by leaping backwards and flapping her wings to keep herself elevated in front of Shadow.
The bat uses her agile movements to flip herself around vertically, bringing her right foot into the air to try and kick the black hedgehog before he lands. However, Shadow deals with her kick by leaning his body forward and swinging his right hand down to block it, but the collision of both forces kills Shadow's momentum and makes him drop to the ground while Rouge continues to fly backwards after readjusting her body back to its upright position.
Omega swerves his upper body around and charges at Shadow after he landed on the ground, picking him up with his right claw and using his backside rocket boosters to thrust forward the very moment Rouge leaps out of the way, allowing the robot to charge forth and slam the black hedgehog face first against the nearest pressurized door, breaking at least a couple of his target's bones in the process. The robot presses Shadow against the wall with all of his might, but the process only lasts a few seconds before the black hedgehog grunts and lets out a proclamation of "C-Chaos Control!"
Warping out of Omega's grasp causes the robot to clench his claws back together and scratch the dented door in front of him, but before he can swerve back around and lock back onto Shadow he is met with a firm kick to the body that brings him colliding against the door thanks to the black hedgehog himself. Backflipping from the recoil of the attack, Shadow lands on the ground and thinks to himself in a solemn tone "Forgive me Omega…"
Remembering Rouge's presence, Shadow quickly turns around and throws his arms in front of his chest to block and straight forward aerial kick from the agile bat. The force of the blow pushes him back a good foot along the ground, but Shadow follows up on this by pulling his arms away and skating along at Rouge once she lands on the ground.
What ensues between the two fighters is a clash of kicks and punches. Rouge's harder hitting kicks cause even the swiftly fighting Shadow to take more time to recover between each of his own blows than he could have anticipated, but so long as the black hedgehog didn't hear Omega whirring back to life he felt safe to keep on fighting Rouge until he could take advantage of a single opening.
Rouge kicks high into the air to go for Shadow's head, something he ducks over inches before it strikes, and with the amount of time it would take for the bat to lower her leg the black hedgehog leans forward and punches her in the side of her gut. The blow sends her flying across the room right as the robot starts to whirr back to life behind him. The black hedgehog glances over his right shoulder as Omega rises to his feet and swerves his upper body back into position, holding his arms up and transforming them into gatling guns once more.
With multiple shots fired straight at him, Shadow runs forward and moves left and right to dodge the bullets as he heads for the wall up ahead. Once he was far enough, the black hedgehog leaps and attaches himself to the wall for a second, leaping off of it towards a wall to the right and then leaping off of that one to head towards Omega. Curling himself into a ball to make the impact of his attack stronger, Shadow is unaware of the robot retracting his right gun into his arm and turning it into a powerful vacuum that drags the black hedgehog right against the lip.
Readjusting his arms so both are in front of his chest, Omega converts the other arm into its regular form and holds it down beside him as he leaps into the air and hovers in place with his booster rockets, aiming Shadow at one of the lava tubes with precision as he begins to charge up a counteractive force that would launch the black hedgehog to his death. But though Shadow was in this terrible predicament, he knew that Omega suffered a great deal of recoil after using this type of technique, and if he timed things right enough he'd be able to get a free attack in on the robot.
Shadow counts down the seconds leading up to Omega's attack, and when he was just one away from being launched the black hedgehog activates Chaos Control. A burst of fire emerges from Omega's arm as the black hedgehog warps time and space to warp himself behind the robot while still curled up in a ball. But he unfurls himself and applies a dropping kick upon his comrade's head.
Omega is sent towards the ground, but with how powerful his legs are the impact is greatly lessened even though the recoil he does suffer through his body causes him to stumble and drop his left claws against the ground to prevent himself from falling over completely. Shadow, using his shoes to hover in the air, swings his right hand beside his hand while charging it with yellow energy, looking down upon Omega's right arm and saying to him with a tone of regret "This is for your own good…"
Throwing a Chaos Spear downward, Shadow impales through the top of Omega's arm, keeping the robot pinned to the ground with the spear's continued existence for the time being as his ability to use that arm as a weapon has been lost. The black hedgehog then lands on the bit of ground behind the robot and uses Chaos Control to warp in front of him, looking on ahead and noticing that Rouge has vanished from view. Shadow looks up and sees the bat dive kicking at him with a determined cry.
Shadow dashes forward to dodge the kick, swerving around smoothly with the help of his rocket shoes and waiting until Rouge lands on the ground and turns around before he launches his next attack. With hesitation welling up as the bat looks his way, the black hedgehog dashes on ahead and throws out a strong punch straight into Rouge's face. He held back just enough of his power to ensure that when his comrade is sent flying against the wall behind Omega she would only be knocked unconscious as she lands on the ground with her back leaning against the wall and her head slanted towards her chest.
Grimacing at what he just had to do to his comrade, Shadow holds his fist in front of his chest for a brief moment as he stands back upright and looks at Omega, who was using all of his strength to tear himself free from the Chaos Spear, declares in a desperate tone of voice "Eradicate! Eradicate! Eradictate target, Shadow the Hedgehog!"
Ripping his arm out of the Chaos Spear at the cost of many parts needed to function, Omega lets the limb limp beside his body as he raises his left arm and changes it into a missile launcher. With eyes flaring up brightly once more, Omega slowly steps towards the black hedgehog and tries to fire the missiles, but with the severe damage dealt to him thanks to the kick to his head and the broken wiring in his arm his vision has gained an increasing amount of static while his body occasionally spasms with electricity.
From where Shadow was standing, he only needed to deal one more blow to Omega to knock him unconscious, but in his current condition even a weak hit might cause permanent damage to the robot's circuitry. With a melancholy look in his eyes as he considered his options, the black hedgehog was forced to activate Chaos Control the very moment Omega chose to fire off a missile. As the projectile blew up one of the doors in the very center wall in front of him, Shadow appears behind Omega and perhaps a quick karate chop against the back of the robot's head.
Within seconds, Omega's vision and weapons' system glitches out and the bulky robot starts to fall over, all the while his voice letting out a droned "Missi..on…must be…acc…omplis…ed….." before he crashes completely against the ground. Shadow, standing still between both of his fallen comrades as he lets out a couple tired breaths, looks at them both to see that the purple fog keeping them under Eggman's control is lifting.
The doctor then activates the speakers again, saying to the black hedgehog with a growl precluding his words "Grrr…You are testing my patience you annoying black hedgehog! You should have peris-"
Focusing in on where the sound is coming from, Shadow casually throws a Chaos Spear through the ceiling to destroy the speakers in their entirety and end Eggman's angered rant prematurely. Letting out a relaxed sigh for the time being, the black hedgehog turns to the right upon hearing an awakening groan coming from Rouge. The bat slowly creaks her eyelids open and lifts her head up as she awakens, looking up at Shadow as the hedgehog folds his arms against his chest and returns to his normally stoic expression.
Rouge flinches in surprise when she sees Shadow standing there by himself, and says in a tone matching her emotions "S-Shadow, is that actually you?"
Shadow's glance of indifference towards the bat was more than enough of an answer for her, and she smiled after letting out a sigh of relief as she said "Well thank goodness that's over…" but as she looks on ahead she notices Omega's fallen body on the ground and says with a shocked gasp as her eyes briefly widen "Omega!"
Quickly pushing herself onto her feet, Rouge runs over to kneeling beside the fallen robot without any previous damage she took slowing her down. Shadow unfurls his arms and turns to face both Rouge and Omega as the bat says to the robot "Hey, wake up Omega!"
When the robot doesn't respond to the bat's concern proclamation, Rouge turns towards Shadow and says to him "We were both controlled by Eggman, weren't we? Tell me you went easy on him Shadow."
The black hedgehog calmly says to Rouge "Don't worry. I hit him just as hard as I needed to knock him unconscious. It shouldn't take him long to get back online."
Feeling assured by Shadow's words, Rouge stands back up and looks at her comrade, saying in an smooth yet apologetic tone of voice "Sorry that I got you involved in this Shadow."
Shadow says in a nonchalant tone of voice "There's no need to apologize Rouge, the doctor captured and mind-controlled me as well."
Rouge looks at the black hedgehog with shock and says in an unsurprised tone of voice "I'm guessing Sonic helped you out though, right?"
Reluctantly, Shadow nods his head, but then goes on to ask Rouge while they have a moment to talk "Rouge, how did Eggman capture you in the first place?"
Rouge folds her arms flatly on top of each other, tilting her head slightly as she says in a respectful manner towards the black hedgehog "G.U.N. put me on an assignment to investigate activity in one of Eggman's abandoned bases. I had tracked his two robots Orbot and Cubot deep underground, but before I could get too far someone attacked me from behind and threw me into a capsule. I don't remember much after that."
"Sounds similar to my story, though I was investigating without G.U.N.'s giving me orders." Shadow responds, and afterwards Rouge unfurls her arms and says to her comrade "Still, doesn't this type of behavior seem rather…odd, even for Eggman?"
The black hedgehog looks away from Rouge for a moment and says in a calm of a voice as he can muster "No. The doctor has always been capable of this type of madness…"
Before Rouge can make another comment, the two comrades hear a noise coming from beside them. Clicks and whirrs indicate that Omega has regained functionality, and after the robot trembles a few times he comments in a joking, robotic tone of voice "I appear to have fallen on my face."
Using the booster rockets on the front of his body, Omega lifts himself up and flips his body around so he's not so awkwardly placed on the ground. He then quickly comments in a nonchalant tone "Problem solved."
Rouge happily states as she turns to face the robot "Omega! Welcome back." To which Omega responds by saying "Voice recognized as Rouge the Bat…Activating primary boosters to assist in standing."
The robot pushes himself up, using his flattened feet in combination with his boosters to stand back upright. Omega then happens to recognize the gaping hole in his right arm as he turns his head to face it. Shadow comments in a quiet yet empathetic tone of voice "Sorry I had to do that to you Omega."
Omega turns his head to look at Shadow, saying in a semi-confused tone of voice "Shadow and Rouge? What are you both doing here?"
Rouge, surprised by Omega's words, says to him as she swerves to look at him "Huh? Don't you recall fighting Shadow just moments ago?"
The robot faces Rouge and says to her bluntly "Negative. A hard-reboot had to be performed to remove a foreign virus from my circuitry. All memories from the last twenty-four hours have been deleted."
Omega then glances at Shadow and asks in as empathetic of a voice as a robot like him could muster "Are you hurt, Shadow?"
The black hedgehog doesn't nod or shake his head in response to the question, instead redirecting it to the more important person in the room "You should be more concerned about yourself Omega. The doctor is the only one who knows how you work, and I doubt that he'll repair your arm."
The robot reassures his comrade rather quickly "This unit is capable of self-repair, I will be fully functional in no-time."
Shadow and Rouge both breath a sigh of relief at this news, and afterwards Omega states in a deadpan tone "Why are you both surprised. I am Omega, the ultimate E-series ro-"
Rouge interrupts Omega's attempt at a reminder of his strength by saying to him "Yeah yeah, calm down Omega, no one was doubting your might."
"Hardly Rouge…Eggman doubted all of ours." Shadow points out, which causes both Omega and Rouge to look at him with the bat in particular saying in surprise "Huh? What do you mean by that Shadow?"
"…The doctor has done what he always does. He underestimate us all, believing that none of us will ever stop his plans and that someday he will rule the world. Well if he wants to succeed, then he's only made his work harder than it should have been. He's made an enemy of the three of us here today, and now we will take the fight directly to him." Shadow says with the utmost yet calmest confidence.
Omega has no objections to this plan as he raises his left arm into the air and transforms it into a gatling gun, firing a few rounds of bullets into the ceiling as he states "Eggman shall be executed and I will rule supreme over all of his inferior robots!"
Rouge jokingly says towards the overexcited robot "Don't get too ahead of yourself there Omega." before she turns to face Shadow and says to him with a nod of her head "You don't need to worry Shadow, you can always count on me to be by your side."
The black hedgehog walks forward between his two comrades, giving Rouge in particular a thankful glance and nod as he takes the lead and says to them "Then lets get moving, shall we?"
Omega cocks his arm as he draws out his claws while Rouge swipes her right thumb in front of her face and smiles, exclaiming enthusiastically "Yeaaah baby! Team Dark is back together again!"
The robot says in a deadpan voice "The sappy comments can wait. Our target is Eggman." To which the bat replies with an equally joking response of "Glad to see the hard-reboot didn't change you Omega."
Looking at Shadow, Rouge says respectfully "Alright Shadow, lead the way." Unbeknownst to her as he prepared to give an order, the black hedgehog had cracked a tiny smile now that he was joined by the two people he would consider to be his friends, and with a simple gesture of his right hand forward he took off down the passageway that Omega had opened earlier with his firepower. With Rouge and Omega following close behind, the three set-off to find and take care of Eggman…
Next Time: Lovestruck Battle