Fourth Assault and Beasts in the Dark
"I still think it's a shame we had to leave them. I was enjoying myself." Sonic stated disheartenedly.
"Well we couldn't have stayed with them forever. They needed to go back for supplies and orders, and we need to press on with finding these Emeralds and making sure that no one manages to do anything bad with them and put the world in even worse a state." Shadow commented, Sonic looked at him funnily.
"I thought we were trying to save the world by destroying each of these bases one by one?" Sonic asked. Shadow sighed and was about to answer, but Slayde took control of the conversation.
"And a hedgehog can't have a secondary objective? Of course the primary objective is to free the world of Robotnik's enslavement. But we also need too make sure that he can't make anything worse than he already has. Or anyone else for that matter. Who knows what kind of creatures have mutated due to this unnatural climate?" Slayde informed him. Sonic just shrugged and carried on walking. "So the next base we're hitting has an Emerald in right Shadow?" Slayde questioned, the people at the back of the group with them looked at him, being Amy, Ebony and Rage. Shadow nodded, pulling his map out.
"Tails marked where he suspected five Emeralds are. Though the Emeralds are near impossible to pinpoint with a detector due to their immense power it is possible to generalise where they are within tens of miles. Two were marked in the desert, which we have now, one was marked in the area where we are now, there's only a single base of the Doctors around here so it's most likely there, then there is one near three bases clustered together, and there's one more location marked off this continent. There's one that we already had, and the last one wasn't detectable."
"What could that mean?" Amy asked. Shadow sighed.
"It means something has swallowed it. Like back when Big's frog decided to swallow one. For some reason the biology of some creatures manages to make the signal impossible to detect. Though I might be able to tell if I'm close enough to the creature... This will be the hardest one to find." Shadow told them all.
"Know what I find odd?" Rage asked suddenly. Which was strange because he normally stayed out of the main discussions.
"And what's that?" Shadow replied with a question of his own as he turned with his arms folded. Rage smirked at him.
"Well it just seems somewhat off that the doctor hasn't decided to move all these Emeralds he has to where he is. I can only guess he's too busy for that." Rage told them. Shadow frowned.
"Something that would distract him from the Emeralds would be something to worry about indeed. Any ideas what?" Shadow questioned him, wondering if the ex-robotnik cyborg would know anything.
"One hears rumours, even when working around robots. As many of us had some degree of self control. He was said to have been working on something that dwarfs anything he's ever worked on before." Rage told them all. The whole group frowned.
"If that is true then that could be something to worry about indeed." Sonic commented suddenly. "We would be best trying to get all these Emeralds and confront him before he has time to finish it." He told them.
"So what's the plan?" Slayde asked. Shadow smirked.
"I actually have a very simple plan for this one; me and Rose will infiltrate the base and search for the Emerald, while Sonic and Terra distract the robots. You shall locate the generators and destroy them, sound good?" Shadow finished.
"So we're going a tad less flash this time? Sounds good." Terra commented. Shadow rolled his eyes.
"Yeah, I wonder who made the biggest flash last time." He reminded her, she just grinned at him.
"Yeah, I wonder." She replied cheekily. Shadow just smirked despite himself.
"Then let's get going. Rage, meet us outside with your friends." He told them. Quickly running towards the base, Sonic, Terra and Amy in toe.
"Laters, guys!" Slayde commented to them all before running off after them.
It didn't take long for the group to separate into their subgroups. Shadow and Amy were quietly walking in the dark shadows of an alley, trying to avoid being seen as most of the robots ran past them towards the commotion that was going on outside. Quietly they snuck themselves into the centre of the base finding themselves in a production room full of robots awaiting activation for Robotnik's next attack on Aragot. Shadow looked towards Amy and put his finger to his mouth before walking forward slowly. There was a very loud bang outside and the two paused. Looking at the robots to see if they had activated from it. The two continued after noticing they hadn't. There must have been about ten thousand robots in this room. Even for the duo It would take them a while to deal with them if they were all to turn on. A couple more bangs came from outside and the two paused again. The robots were still inactive. Amy let out a sigh of relief and went to move forwards only to find that she was suddenly surrounded by robots.
"Really? A sigh? The banging doesn't do anything but a sigh does!?" She commented angrily as she clicked for her hammer and started smashing the robots in a spectacular fashion. Shadow had faded from view but she could hear him taking down as many robots as she was. She realised she hadn't used her hammer for a while and noted that she shouldn't forget about it because it was still a formidable weapon.
Shadow glanced over to Amy to see her smashing robots with her hammer. He quickly back flipped out of the way of one robots attack and delivered a devastating kick to another causing it to fly into 3 other robots and breaking them all. These robots were mere fodder and it was annoying having to deal with them all. They only had strength in number on their side as they hadn't even been equipped with weapons yet. He let out his own sigh hoping that Slayde was having some more luck.
Sonic destroyed another one of the robots that had been sent to him. It seemed like Robotnik had nothing but the smaller robots stocked in here, though they were still dangerous when equipped with guns so he was glad he had his Superform to rely on. He threw one of them against the wall, hoping that the bang would draw out more of the impressive robots to him. He sighed when none came. This was one hell of an uneventful attack, they may as well have just used a Chaos Blast to level the place and searched for the Emerald afterwards... But it was a bit late now. He glanced over to Terra.
"Hey, you seen any more interesting bots yet?"
He asked as he threw another bot against one of the walls making another bang.
"No I haven't." Terra replied as she followed suit and made another noise. "You'd think the racket we're making would attract them to us." She commented. Suddenly part of the tower lit up.
"Finally! Something interesting happens!" Sonic commented excitedly. Suddenly several egg emperor style robots surrounded him. "Seems like egghead is lacking on new designs!" He commented before he flew at one full speed, destroying it instantly. "This won't be much fun at all." He commented as Terra flung one of the robots towards him. He kicked it upwards into orbit.
"Damn, almost got you then." Terra commented sweetly. Sonic looked gob smacked.
"If you want to play it like that then we shall do." Sonic commented, dodging a blade being swung at him by one of the robots. He quickly grabbed the next blade swung at him and threw the entire robot at Terra, who had just grabbed the leg of one near her and done the same thing. The two robots collided in the middle destroying the both of them.
"You'll have to do better than that blur." She told him mischievously as she threw another robot at him, this time he knocked it into the robot next to him that was about to take another swing for him. He quickly back flipped and kicked a robot towards her. She pulled up a slab of rock to block the robot. "That's a bit more like it." She taunted.
Slayde was walking around like he was in any normal city and for some reason none of the robots were bothering him. It amused him that they were likely mistaking him for one of Robotnik's mechs so he had a smirk on his face. He heard some kind of bang behind him, but paid it no heed. He continued on until he heard two other bangs and turned around to look back.
"Wow they're making a lot of noise." He turned back to find a robot the size of an egg emperor looking at him, yet it seemed to be less for fighting and more for running the place as it lacked weapons, yet it seemed to be guarding this particular corridor.
"Who. Are. You?" It asked in it's robotic voice.
"I seem to be getting asked that a lot lately. I'm me." Slayde replied. The robot paused for a second, before speaking again.
"That is an invalid answer. Please give a valid answer or I will be forced to attack." It stated in it's monotone voice.
"This sentence is false." Slayde replied. The robot simply stared at him for a few seconds before a spark flew from somewhere in its circuitry and it collapsed on the floor. Slayde burst out laughing. "I never thought that'd actually work!" He commented before continuing down the corridor, laughing as he went. He came across a sealed door. "It seems it is time for my mad hacker skills." He commented before he blasted the door open with Chaos. "Yeah right." He said, the room seemed strangely cold as he entered and he could tell why. There was the ice blue Chaos Emerald right in front of him. He studied it for a few moments, trying to work out what it was doing here before grabbing it with his left hand, he could feel power surging up to his shoulder and he closed his eyes in reaction to the cold. He pulled it away from the stand it was on and the coldness vanished. He quickly realised it was becoming very hot in the room very fast. He was out the room like a bolt and just after he made it out the room exploded. He looked at the Emerald and grinned. "Guess I should go find Rose and Shadow." He commented as he put it in his quills, running back the way he had come from. He could still feel the heat levels creeping up and feared that first explosion might not have been the last.
He came across the large room that Shadow and Amy were in in mere minutes. Finding that they had been distracted by a few hundred robots. He smirked, grabbing the ice blue emerald before touching the ground. "Chaos Ice Age." He muttered, unleashing waves of ice upon the ground as all of the robots in front of him were frozen solid. "You guys seem to be getting lazy! I did your job for you!" Slayde commented, holding up the Emerald for the two to see.
"I see, I guess it was in the same place as the power room?" Shadow asked. Slayde nodded.
"Yes, the Doctor was using it to cool down some kind of experimental energy source. In case you hadn't noticed it's getting slowly warmer and I think that it's going to let off an explosion on a nuclear scale so I think we should probably get moving. The metal of the base will contain a lot of the blast force, but it'll still be a few miles of destruction." Slayde told him, for once Shadow actually looked slightly panicked, he quickly powered up to Superform, Slayde copied him immediately.
"Then we need to get moving." He commented as Slayde grabbed Amy. Shadow noticed this and commented before she could. "Rose no objections, you can't fly very fast yet."
"I wasn't going to say anything." She told him with a little too much force telling them both that she was. They both flew out of the room and into the streets that Shadow and Amy were sneaking through not long ago. The stopped as they came to a Superform Terra and Sonic.
"Base is going to blow. We need to leave." Slayde commented quickly before flying off. Terra quickly followed them but Sonic continued battling the mech he was fighting, causing Shadow to stay behind with him.
"Come on Sonic, we have to leave." Shadow told him. Sonic ignored him, finishing off the egg emperor like robot.
"I heard Slayde the first time. Come on then." He replied just as everything went quiet. The two of them looked towards the base. "Oh sh-" Sonic started as Shadow grabbed him and they both vanished in a flash of green, just for the area to be consumed by flames moments after.
Everyone quickly headed to where the green flash had sprung, not too far between the whole group and the smouldering remains of the base. Slayde, Amy and Terra were the first to arrive.
"If we're going to get this finished before the end of the year I'm going to need you to stop being so idiotic." Shadow commented harshly to Sonic. The two had begun to fall out and no one was there to witness why, even if Slayde could make a guess, but the whole group had arrived now.
"Least I can admit my feelings to people, rather than being a closed up prick." Sonic retorted back out of no where, causing Shadow to look enraged.
"I can't admit what isn't there rodent." Shadow snapped, Sonic gave him a look as if to say he was just going to tear off his head.
"I dare you to call me that again." Sonic announced in fury. Shadow smirked.
"Rodent." He simply said. Sonic went to jump at him but before he could do anything Terra grabbed him and put him in an arm lock. Sonic attempted to wriggle free.
"Let me go Terra, let me get him." He told her in fury. Terra just continued to hold him as Shadow smirked at him. Sonic powered up as he fur was coated in black, he threw Terra off and dived at Shadow. He was tackled by a yellow and blue Hedgehog.
"Dammit Sonic, calm down. He doesn't actually mean what he's saying." Slayde told him as he pinned him to the ground.
"Shadow, behave yourself." Was heard in the background from Amy.
"That Hedgehog infuriates me to the point of insanity." Shadow commented to her casually as if Sonic wasn't right next to him.
"That doesn't mean that you can insult him like that. What was all this about anyway?" Amy questioned Shadow. Shadow shrugged.
"Ask faker. I can't stand to be in a group with him any more." He commented before disappearing in a flash of green. Amy growled at the spot he had vanished from.
"I'm following him, he might be powerful but he shouldn't be on his own." Slayde commented before also vanishing in a flash of yellow.
"Now what happened Sonic?" Amy questioned him.
Slayde appeared in a cave, it was quite dark so he knew they must have been fairly deep in, he could however see just fine and noticed Shadow was in front of him, ignoring his presence.
"Are you okay Shadow?" Slayde questioned the dark hedgehog who was just sitting there contemplating something.
"I'm fine." He replied shortly. His old demeanour fully cloaking him. Slayde sat beside him with his legs crossed.
"I'm surprised you two have taken so long to fall out to be fair. Though at the same time I'm surprised. It doesn't really seem like the right time." Slayde commented. Shadow simply remained silent. "I can't help but feel like this might have some kind of outside influence... Like something to do with a certain pink Hedgehog?" Slayde mentioned to him. Shadow folded his arms.
"Not you too." He simply said. "My feelings towards Rose are no more than that of a friend and a mentor." Shadow retorted with steel in his voice, Slayde repressed a chuckle knowing it would simply anger Shadow.
"I feel like you're defending it a bit strongly for there to be nothing there." Slayde commented observantly. Shadow once again remained silent. "I'm not saying you do, but if you do like the girl maybe you should tell her. There could be something there if you want there to be." Slayde informed him. "I wouldn't want you to be alone when you didn't have to be. You're becoming like a brother to me." Slayde mentioned, Shadow's face very subtly softened in a way that most eyes wouldn't pick up, he opened his mouth to reply but as he did two things happened. The first was that Slayde suddenly vanished because it had become too dark for even him to see. The second was that he got knocked forward by something with great force. Shadow heard Slayde muttering in pain.
"Slayde can you see anything?" Shadow quickly asked as he got to his feet, looking around to no avail.
"No I can't, and its hard to hear what we're dealing with because of this echoey cave." Slayde replied before he let out a muffled yelp. "Yeah I'm getting my damn sword out." He announced.
"Wait! You might hit me with it." Shadow mentioned, Slayde sighed. Shadow suddenly felt massive claws slashing at his chest, he felt the blood trickle as he was knocked to the ground, utterly winded.
"Shadow?" Slayde shouted, alarmed. He powered himself into Superform quickly and the glow illuminated the cave enough for him to see perfectly, yet the creature nor Shadow were anywhere to be seen... "The hell is going on?" Slayde commented until he felt a similar slash from behind, everything went black again for a few seconds until he suddenly found himself somewhere completely different. He was in the middle of a grassy field in the dead of night. His disorientation faded fast when he realise Shadow was picking himself up in front of him. He quickly moved forwards, the wounds on his back stinging.
"Are you okay?" Shadow asked before he could also powering himself into Superform. "Keep your guard up, I doubt it's gone." He quickly added as Slayde nodded to his question.
"I presume you're okay? Did you get to see what attacked us?" Slayde asked quickly, clicking the fingers on both his hands, bringing both of his swords out.
"No, but I had my suspicions that this is the beast that's swallowed the Emerald." Shadow replied.
"Oh really? I thought it was just your standard run of the mill creature that could actually wound someone in Superform, because you know, there's loads of them." Slayde replied sarcastically. Shadow glared at him.
"Either way, we need to find our way out of this... Whatever this is." Shadow told him. Slayde nodded.
"Agreed." He commented as the both of them began to move forwards, heading towards a mountain range. After several minutes of walking the found themselves standing in front of a yellow Dog, she was just standing there, mumbling to herself incoherently. "Are you okay?" Asked Slayde, the woman turned to show eyes utterly empty and white.
"What the hell?" Shadow commented as she jumped for them, Shadow dodged the attack with ease. But the Dog just kept attacking. A blade sliced through her neck and she just vanished into a black mist. "Why did you do that? What if she was an innocent?"
"Even if it wasn't an apparition, she was clearly feral. Putting her out of her misery was the kindest thing to do if that was the case." Slayde told him, a coldness coming from him that Shadow had not really seen before. It reminded him of himself, which shook him slightly. The Hedgehog was just like him, but with less darkness weighing him down.
"I understand in that case. We need to keep moving." Shadow replied, his calm self realising that it was just the right thing to do in that situation. The two wordlessly continued towards the mountains. They both knew that if the creature liked the cave that it likely dwelled in a similar place in this dimension. They continued until the hit a fork in the road.
"Hmm, left or right?" Shadow commented. Slayde pointed right.
"It leads closer to the mountainside, and if we need to we can turn back, we're not that slow so we can turn back." Slayde commented, they both continued down the way until they came across a door in the mountainside. "Erm? Okay? Want to open it?" Slayde asked jokingly.
"I'm not actually sure if I do..." Shadow commented before stepping up to it. "I feel some strange energy coming from this door.
"It could be the Emerald." Slayde suggested. Shadow looked unconvinced however he opened the door slowly. The both suddenly found themselves in a room, a cave like room with torches around the room. There were two doors in front of them and two guards, one black wolf and one grey wolf. "Yeah, this dimension is officially messed up." He commented. Shadow walked up to a podium with writing on it and read aloud.
"You are in a chamber with two doors as the exits. One door will cause you to burn for eternity, the other door leads to freedom. There are two guards standing before you. One guard always lies and the other always tells the truth. You can ask only one question of these guards to decide which door to take. Choose your question wisely." Shadow announced.
"And that's just taken it to a whole new level of ridiculousness. Riddles? Really?" Slayde commented. Shadow rolled his eyes at the other Hedgehog.
"Stop fretting. I'm pretty sure I know the answer." Shadow replied.
"Yeah, pretty sure isn't the best in the word when one is going to burn for eternity..." Slayde commented casually with a hint of sarcasm.
"Okay, I am sure I know the answer." Shadow retorted. "I can't believe I'm reduced to playing the mind games of beasts." Shadow commented under his breath before approaching one of the guards. "If I was to ask the other guard whether the left or the right door lead to doom what would he say?" Shadow asked the grey wolf.
"He would say that the door on the right was the door of doom." The guard replied lazily as if he had grown bored of the world.
"Then the right door we take." Shadow commented without explaining himself to Slayde and opened the door. The two of them found themselves back outside again. Where the door was there was now a cave.
"Are we in a game or something?" Slayde commented half jokingly, Shadow looked at him with a look of realisation.
"What if it's just our minds stuck in this dimension, and the creature is feasting on our bodies right now?" Shadow commented. Slayde looked at him startled and then realised he felt like something was missing from him. If his mind was stuck here and his body was alone then that was a terrible thing.
"If that's the case we need to wake up now." Slayde commented. "But how?" He questioned Shadow. The Hedgehog sighed.
"You're not gonna like this... We have to die." Shadow commented. "If we die in this dimension then our minds will return to our bodies... However, if I'm wrong and we are actually here physically... Then we will truly die." Shadow told him. Slayde sighed.
"Well that's a tad shit." He joked, Shadow grinned despite himself. "I guess I'll do it then." He told him.
"What?" Shadow asked, taken aback. He was surprised Slayde had simply volunteered so easily.
"Well two reasons, you're more important to the group than I, and also I can leave one of my swords in this dimension and summon it back to me if I survive, that way you'll know to follow." Slayde told him. "Beside that I need to get out as fast as possible. If I don't summon the swords and you find a way out... Then look in my backpack, you'll know what it is when you see it." Slayde told him before he dropped his katana.
"You are just as important to the group." Shadow calmly told Slayde as he plunged his own blade into his chest, also vanishing in a black mist. Shadow sighed, looking at the blade waiting for it to vanish. A few seconds later it did... Now Shadow had the problem of working out just how he was going to get himself out of here...
"Ah finally." Slayde commented as Shadow stirred. "I was starting to think that you wasn't coming." Slayde joked. Shadow looked at him icily.
"In case you didn't realise... I didn't have anything to quickly escape with." Shadow told him icily before looking around, half the cave seemed to have collapsed while he was out and the creature was nothing more than a pile of bones and blood. "What happened while I wasn't here?" He asked slightly suspiciously. Slayde held out the white Emerald.
"Does it matter, we got this! That makes 5!" Slayde commented casually. Shadow gave him a look.
"In the time we were out our bodies should have been devoured. Either the time in that dimension was very slow, which is entirely possible, or this happened before even you woke up." Shadow commented.
"Could be a bit of both I guess." Slayde replied, hiding the white Emerald in his quills. Shadow sighed.
"Who are... No, I won't pry because I know you won't tell me. But just so you know, you can tell me. I won't judge you. I've done many things in my past so for me to pass judgement on another is a bit hypocritical." Shadow told him calmly. "Now, shall we head back? Nothing like a life threatening situation to quell the anger in someone." He finished as he went to teleport.
"Wait, what started the argument?" Slayde asked quickly before Shadow managed to zap himself away.
"Well I said that his foolishness at wanting to finish off that last bot could have got someone hurt, and he said that by someone I meant Rose... So I pointed out that I meant anyone, you or even his precious Terra. Then he told me not to bring her into it and I told him not to bring up Rose then. Then I presume you heard the rest." Shadow told him before he vanished in a flash of green. Slayde simply smirked as he disappeared in a flash of yellow-white.
They both appeared before the group simultaneously. Sonic stepped forward.
"Sorry for being how I was Shadow." He told him, Shadow raised an eyebrow.
"You told them what happened?" He asked doubtfully.
"I told Terra, and she... Well yeah, I'm apologising right? So sorry." Sonic told him, the ebony and crimson Hedgehog smirked.
"We found an Emerald while we were gone." Shadow told the group to change the subject and Slayde held it out. He handed it to Sonic.
"Here Terra, take this light blue one." Slayde commented as he threw it over to her. She caught it before pulling out the dark blue one. "Oh yeah, I forgot you already had one. Could you give one to Rose in that case?" He asked politely. Terra shrugged.
"Sure." She replied as she handed the dark blue one to Amy. "I prefer the light blue one anyway." She commented casually. Amy smiled as she took the Emerald. Glad that she had been entrusted with one.
"So now we have the yellow, the green, the dark and light blue, and the white. Just two to go." Slayde commented to the group. Shadow turned to the sunset.
"Seems me and Slayde were gone a while. Let's set up camp for tonight." Shadow told them all. No one complained. It had been a long day and there was another long day ahead of them tomorrow.
So... This update feels to me like it's a little bit below my other chapters... But that might just be me getting back into the swing of things. Much thanks to those who reviewed! Hope old and new readers decide to do the same this time round! ;)