Disclaimer: All non-original characters are property of SEGA, Egmont and/or their respective creators.
Inescapable Past, Act 7: Southern Discomfort
Lieutenant Zamzi typed away on his computer's keyboard, oblivious to the purple eyes glaring at him across the office. Alas, Sergeant Topaz didn't feel she had any right to complain. Although it felt like the red iguana was drumming his fingers on her skull, she was the one trying to listen to the muffled shouts leaking through the door beside Zamzi's desk.
When she and Vice Commander Trusk had been making their way to Commander Volta's office, Topaz had fully expected she'd be joining the warthog on the other side of the door. As it was, Zamzi had invited the lioness to take a seat while Trusk faced the Commander's wrath alone. Part of her wished she was in there, if only to see the old bastard getting chewed out.
His path to the role of Vice Commander was paved with the broken dreams of innumerable junior officers, all of whom had had the misfortune to serve as Trusk's subordinate. Topaz couldn't be completely sure – the warthog had been GUN's second-in-command longer than she'd been with GUN period – but this might even have been the first time he'd been held personally responsible for a bungled operation.
After another five minutes of unsatisfactory eavesdropping, the Commander's office door flew open. Topaz hastily stood to attention as a glowering Trusk stormed out. He didn't so much as acknowledge her as he passed. Dutifully, she followed him out into the hallway. Obliged to wear heels as part of her black dress uniform, the lioness didn't try to keep pace with the rotund swine as he strode towards the nearest elevator.
They rode the elevator in silence. Once the doors rolled open, Trusk took off again at a march, all the way to the Operation Shadowhunt command center. He burst into the repurposed conference room as violently as he'd exited the Commander's office. Its only occupant, a white tigress in mottled grey fatigues, jumped out of her seat as the door rebounded off the whitewashed wall.
"Corporal, show me the map!" boomed the Vice Commander.
Slowed down by her inappropriate footwear, Topaz arrived at the command center in time to find a green-and-black map of the southern continent of Meridian being projected on a wall. Trusk neglected to acknowledge her again. He seemed completely fixated on a blinking red dot near the continental capital of New Tek City: Shadow's current location.
Topaz closed the door and kicked off her heels. Ignoring the map, she instead looked at the tigress manning the console with the inbuilt projector. Seeing her swollen muzzle, she grimaced. It was Corporal Jian's personal memento from the morning's botched raid in Station Square. She'd fumbled her weapon just long enough for Amy Rose to clobber her with a shotgun butt.
"Sergeant?" said Trusk without looking around.
"Sir?"
"What is our current long-range aerial transport capability?"
"Nothing that could get close to Meridian without refueling, sir."
Trusk hmphed. "And maritime?"
"All boats were bequeathed to host cities when we relocated-"
"Fine," he cut in. "What other options are there?"
Topaz cocked an eyebrow. "Options, sir?"
"Contractors. Freelancers. Goons. Whatever it is your Intelligence Wing pals call mercenaries these days," said the Vice Commander, glancing over his shoulder at last.
"Mercs, sir?" said the lioness.
"Yes, sergeant, mercs," replied Trusk tersely. "What's out there at the moment?"
"I, uh, I'll need to contact-"
"Speak to whoever you need to. Pay them whatever you have to. Just do whatever it takes to stop that damned dot flashing."
Topaz frowned. "But sir-"
"Proceed, sergeant."
Her frown morphed a scowl. "With respect, Vice Comm-"
"I said proceed, sergeant."
Corporal Jian looked on nervously as the lioness bared her teeth at the warthog's turned back. She emitted a low, rumbling growl.
"If you would care to look further than your own snout for five minutes, sir, you might notice we barely have the budget to maintain our current numbers. I'm not going bankrupt this organization because the guy whose job you wanted just tore you a new one."
Topaz focused on keeping her breathing steady as Trusk rounded on her. His right hand hovered above a holster strapped to the ceremonial red sash around his waist.
"Corporal Jian?" said the Vice Commander levelly.
"S-sir?"
"You're dismissed."
Leaving the console with the inbuilt projector turned on, the tigress rose slowly from her seat. She tried to catch Topaz's eye, but the lioness didn't dare look away from the superior officer she'd just lambasted. Jian padded her way around the conference room's perimeter. Once she came to the door, she reached for the handle. There, her hand lingered long enough for Trusk to glance at her.
"Corporal, I said you're dis-"
Without a second thought, Topaz lunged at the Vice Commander. She slashed the red sash with a swipe of her claws, catching the loose holster as it fell. She rolled clear of the kick the warthog aimed at her head and stood up. Unholstering the black handgun, she pointed it at its owner. Photos on the walls of the officers' mess chronicling his boxing exploits attested to the fact an unarmed Trusk still posed a threat.
"You've picked a depressing way to end to your career, sergeant," said the warthog impassively. "As have you, corporal."
Topaz scoffed. "We'll still be here tomorrow, sir, or we'll all be in the stockade together."
"Huh?" uttered Jian, echoing the look of bemusement on Trusk's face.
"Did you never wonder why that group of United Federation senators always needed so much security, sir?" the lioness began. "The Intelligence Wing did. Because it was our guys getting paid, we didn't see much point in shutting it down, but those senators always paid for more than they actually received. You wouldn't happen to know anything about that, would you, sir?"
The Vice Commander's beady eyes narrowed.
"I'll hire you every last mercenary on Mobius if you order me to, sir, but you'll be the one picking up the tab."
Topaz's trigger finger tensed as Trusk's right hand moved across his chest. She relaxed as he bypassed the fold of his black jacket in favor of his left breast pocket. He methodically unfastened the brass buttons, fished out a small square-shaped object and proffered it to her. She motioned for Jian to retrieve it while she covered her.
"Seriously, sir?" said the lioness as the tigress handed her the blue plastic square. "A floppy disc?"
"A little primitive for your Intelligence Wing pals, sergeant?" sneered Trusk. "I'm sure you can tell one of them how it works while you change their diaper."
Topaz rolled her eyes. She was tempted to reveal it was one of her youngest colleagues who'd first sniffed out the old warthog's moneymaking scheme. In the end, she said nothing as she backed towards the door, handgun still raised. Feeling Jian's hand on her shoulder, the lioness reversed out into the hallway, tossing the gun back inside as she closed the door behind them.
〜
Shadow awoke with a grunt as something struck his wounded thigh. The dull pain lingered as he lifted the blanket someone had covered him with. By the light of the sun shining through the window beside the bed he was on, he found his right upper leg swaddled in a cocoon of spotless white bandages. He stared at the fresh dressing in disbelief. There wasn't a speck of red to be seen.
It was only as he lowered the blanket that Shadow noticed Amy Rose curled up asleep beside. Glancing at her, the black hedgehog furrowed his brow, searching his memory. He could recall being woken up at Emerson's Point, a clifftop overlooking Station Square, by an approaching helicopter. He could recall the words "Chaos Control" being on the tip of his tongue when the chopper's door opened and a pink hedgehog jumped out, rather than the GUN commando he'd expected.
What he couldn't recall was Amy being dressed in a picnic blanket. Looking her purple gingham dress, all he could think of was a blanket Maria had unfurled almost every day in the arboretum aboard Space Colony ARK. The girl used to drag him up there whenever she could, regardless of whether Gerald had plans for him on a given day. Her appetite for adorning his quills with daisy chains had known no bounds.
Suddenly, an unwelcome thought interrupted his reverie. If Amy was up here, who the hell was keeping watch downstairs? His scarlet eyes widening, Shadow looked across the room towards a wooden powder-blue bookcase standing against an adjacent wall. Its shelves were filled not with literature, but with guns.
They were weapons he'd pilfered from a GUN outpost in the early stages of the Black Arms invasion, right after he'd claimed this house as a refuge. He'd done so after accepting he wasn't going to make it through the invasion without sleep. Mercifully, New Tek City wasn't one of the six cities the alien fleets targeted. Willing his leaden limbs back to life, Shadow began to shuffle to towards the edge of the bed, eyes fixed on the bookcase's bottom shelf where the blue Chaos Emerald was stowed.
"Huh?" uttered Amy groggily. "What're you doing?"
Shadow froze like a jailbreaker caught in a prison searchlight. He didn't look round.
"I'm not sure it's really…safe for you to walk yet," murmured the pink hedgehog, yawning midsentence.
Her bedfellow's head remained unturned. "Is crawling ok?"
"Why would you want to crawl?"
Shadow took a deep breath, lest he snap at the sleepy child he'd just woken up. He looked round.
"If you're too tired to keep watch, I should at least keep the Emerald in reach."
Amy frowned. "What're you worrying about? Espio's downstairs."
"Es-pi-o?" echoed the black hedgehog, carefully annunciating each syllable
The youngster nodded her horizontal head, mussing her braided quills. Shadow looked at her doubtfully, but something in her earnest green eyes overpowered his incredulity. He supposed it was possible he'd simply forgotten seeing a chameleon jump out the helicopter. Intercontinental teleportation left him feeling foggy at the best of times, and what with his recent blood loss, who knew what else he might've forgotten.
"Wait, was Espio that 'friend' you went to see?"
Amy looked momentarily bewildered. "Oh, that? N-no, he was just, like, uh, in the neighborhood.
In the neighborhood? Shadow resisted the urge to repeat the phrase aloud. If she'd been talking about Vector, he wouldn't have given it a second thought. He'd experienced the crocodile's altruism firsthand aboard Space Colony ARK. Espio, however, had always seemed more grounded, which made him wonder what white lies Amy might've told to sway the chameleon.
"So, Chaotix own a helicopter now?"
Amy sniggered. "No, err, Sally kind of loaned that to us."
"You went to see the princess?"
"Not exactly. It, umm, it just kind of worked out that way."
"Then who-"
Shadow was interrupted by his own stomach letting out a sonorous growl.
"When did you last eat?" said Amy, goggling at him.
The black hedgehog blinked mutely. He couldn't remember. Certainly not since before their encounter on the path to Emerson's Point. His fellow hedgehog seemed to sense as much. Before he knew it, she'd thrown off the blanket, stood up and jumped spryly over him. Landing on the carpeted floor, she slipped her feet into a pair of flipflops and bent down to him up.
"Espio found a load of food downstairs," she said while doing so.
Shadow didn't reply. He presumed it was the cache of rations he'd stolen from that GUN outpost at the same time as the guns. Before they left the bedroom, he had Amy stop by the bookcase-turned-gunrack. Then, with the blue Chaos Emerald tucked firmly under Shadow's left arm, they made for the stairs.
The duo's descent proved achingly slow. Under the hedgehogs' combined weight, each wooden stair seemed to creak louder than the last. About halfway down, Shadow peered wistfully over the banister, weighing up the pros and cons of teleporting them the rest of the way. In the same glance, he glimpsed Espio.
The chameleon was sitting in the beat-up old armchair in the loungeroom area to the right of the front door. He didn't look up, apparently absorbed in a paperback copy of Princess Blaze & The Flames of Disaster. By the time the hedgehogs cleared the last step, he still hadn't. After a few moments, Amy cleared her throat ostentatiously.
"Are you just going sit there?"
Espio looked up from his book, as if only just noticing them. "Sorry, I assumed you could handle it."
"I can handle it," said Amy indignantly. "Shadow's hungry, though."
"Then allow me," said the chameleon, walking over to take custody of the Ultimate Life Form.
Unburdened, Amy turned and made a beeline for a door at the back of the room. The slap of flipflops rebounding against her heels accompanied every step.
"How's the leg?" asked Espio, adjusting the arm draped over his shoulders.
"I can barely feel it," replied Shadow.
"Those painkillers were genuine, then."
"Painkillers?"
"Compliments of the King Maximilian Acorn Free Hospital," said the chameleon as they began to shamble across the dusty floorboards towards the loungeroom.
"Hospital?"
"You sound surprised. Where do you think she got that chopper?"
"She didn't say."
"What else she didn't tell you?"
"What're you doing here?"
"What I can," said Espio, lowering Shadow onto the couch beside the armchair. Like it's fellow item of furniture, its glory days were long past. The threadbare upholstery was a faded orange, and Shadow practically sank into the seat cushions. With a little help, he ended up sitting lengthways, the blue Chaos Emerald resting in his lap.
"How did Amy talk you into-"
"She didn't have to. I saw what your old playmates did to her apartment," the chameleon cut in as he returned to the armchair. "I'd been led to believe GUN had given up trying to whack you."
"So was I."
"What changed?"
Shadow shrugged. "I don't know."
"Fair enough," said Espio. "Now, what possessed you to drag Amy into this mess?"
"I...don't know."
"You don't know?"
"I was blacking out at the time," said the black hedgehog, stiffening up. "It's just where the Emerald dumped me."
"So it's the Emerald's fault?"
Shadow rolled his eyes, reclining again as the slap-slap-slap of Amy's flipflops heralded her return. He took no small measure of enjoyment watching Espio trying not to wince at the noise, right up until the pink hedgehog presented him with a steaming hot plastic bowl of...something.
"Thanks," he muttered looking dubiously at the pale porridge-like substance in the bowl. However, Amy had already turned around.
"Were you, like, actually reading that?" she asked, eyeing the dogeared copy of Princess Blaze & The Flames of Disaster on the armchair's armrest.
"Did you want it back?" replied Espio. The book had come from the bottom of her backpack, where it had languished since a camping trip Vector had taken her and Cream on.
"N-no no," she said hurriedly, shaking her head. "I just wondered what you thought of it. So far, I mean."
The chameleon picked up the book, appearing to thoughtfully study the book's front cover. It depicted the titular heroine and her albino hedgehog sidekick wreathed in flame. "This Blaze character keeps reminding me of someone."
"R-really?" said the pink hedgehog, apparently without meaning to. She slapped a hand over her mouth, vainly attempting to hide the smile blossoming underneath. Before Espio could offer further comment, she'd fled back to the kitchen.
"Flattery?" said Shadow once the sound of slapping flipflops had faded.
The chameleon shrugged. "I was a little rough on her earlier."
With that, he opened the book. Reluctantly, the black hedgehog turned his attention to the bowl in his lap. He stirred the gloopy beige contents morosely. As flavorless as it was colorless, this gunk had kept him alive during the Black Arms invasion, and he'd resented every mouthful. The GUN-made substance's ability to sustain a full-grown Mobian for a half a day was its sole redeeming quality.
With a resigned sigh, he lifted a spoonful to his mouth. Promptly swallowing before it could congeal on his tongue, it took no small amount of willpower to not wretch. In the days to come, Shadow would look back and wonder if he didn't feel the tiniest bit grateful to whoever blew out the loungeroom's bay windows in a blast of green light.
"Chaos Control," he breathed, teleporting behind the couch as it and the armchair were showered with broken glass and bits of singed creeper. Then, it was raining tufts of foam as a second green blast exploded the armchair's backrest.
"Espio?" Shadow called, hearing a frenzied scramble of footsteps across the room.
He snapped his head to the left. Amy came charging out of the kitchen, gripping a frying pan. Pressing his back against the couch, he shuffled along the floorboards, peering round in time to see the front door disintegrate in another green blast. The shockwave knocked the pink hedgehog flat on her back. As she writhed on the dusty floor, the slender silhouette of a Mobian appeared in the haze of sawdust.
"Where's your boyfriend, kid?" said the white lemur, dressed in an amber tanktop and black leggings. She loomed over Amy, palming her right fist. Just then, an unseen force knocked the stranger sideways.
"She doesn't appreciate being called kid," said Espio as he rendered himself visible, standing with one leg outstretched.
"Appreciate this," hissed the lemur, coiling her tail around the chameleon's standing leg.
Shadow flinched on Espio's behalf as the chameleon landed flat on his front. He did likewise for the lemur when Amy sank her teeth into the stranger's striped tail.
"You two, upstairs!" barked Espio, flipping back onto his feet.
"Catch that, Whisp?" said the lemur, getting up with a hand pressed to her left ear.
The two combatants locked glares. The lemur flashed a grin. The chameleon's golden eyes narrowed. The lemur yowled as the chameleon stamped on her tail as it tried to trip up the fleeing Amy. Once she'd clambered behind the couch, Shadow unceremoniously grabbed her wrist and said the magic words, depositing them on the carpeted floor of the bedroom they'd woken up in.
"Was she GUN? She sure didn't look like-"
"Get the blinds!" blurted Shadow, remembering which yard the bedroom's window overlooked.
Amy duly lunged across the bed towards the dangling cord. The veil of aluminum slats descended, plunging the bedroom into a crepuscular gloom. Falling back on his hands, Shadow permitted himself a small sigh of relief, glad that back-to-back Chaos Controls hadn't left him comatose. The reality of the danger they were still in reverberated through the floor as Amy crawled back over to join him.
"What now?" she asked, resting her head on Shadow's shoulder while the dull thudding downstairs continued unabated.
The black hedgehog wasn't sure what to say. He'd never witnessed Espio in combat without a healthy supply of kunai to hand, but he had to assume the chameleon could handle himself in a brawl. In any case, the Chaotix detective had been unequivocal in his command for them to go (and presumably stay) upstairs.
"You hear that?" whispered Amy frantically.
He pricked his ears. He heard the unmistakable creak of that damned staircase. He instinctively put his arm around Amy, pulling both the twelve-year-old and the blue Chaos Emerald closer to him as the creaking got louder. Soon enough, it gave way to the heavy, deliberate footsteps on floorboards. Confused by the intruder's lack of urgency, Shadow watched with bated breath as the adumbral Mobian walked leisurely across the landing.
Not unlike Espio earlier, he didn't seem to notice the hedgehogs at first. He just stood there in the bedroom's doorway, casually taking stock of the gloomy bedroom. Shadow had no idea who he was. Nothing about the stranger looked familiar. Not the jet-black pelt. Not the unruly white mane between his steep, triangular ears. Not even the curved sword with the crystalline red blade, sitting loosely in left hand.
Shadow tensed, pulling Amy even closer as the stranger's eerie heterochromatic gaze finally homed in on them. A smirk flickered on his pointed white muzzle.
"Huh. This'll be easier than I thou-"
"Chaos Spear!"
A lance of yellow light blew the stranger away, and the doorframe along with him. So stunned was Amy by the abruptly altered architecture, she didn't initially notice Shadow gesticulating frantically at the bookcase-turned-gunrack. Curling her lip, the pink hedgehog nevertheless obliged. Scrambling across the room, she returned holding a handgun like she'd plucked it out of a sewer.
Shadow snatched the weapon and swiftly checked it over. To his relief, it was loaded. To his dismay, upon pointing the handgun at the hole in the wall previously occupied by the door, he saw the intruder walking without the slightest trace of a limp. The black hedgehog fired at the floorboards immediately in front of the stranger. Squeaking in fright, Amy huddled behind him.
The warning shot had the desired effect. Sort of. The stranger stopped in his tracks, but otherwise, he didn't seem fazed by the fact he had a loaded gun trained on him. He glowered at Shadow, tossing his ruby cutlass from hand to hand, looking as if he might try throwing it at any second.
This taunting only intensified the hedgehog's regret about expending so much energy on the ultimately pointless Chaos Spear. He didn't want to shoot this guy, especially not with Amy possibly watching. Alas, he knew he couldn't teleport again without passing out. Indeed, even keeping the handgun steady was proving taxing.
All such considerations were rendered moot as the wall beside the bed exploded. The closed blinds caught the worst of the window's glass but a wave of splintered clapboard, chunks of drywall and assorted other debris washed over the hedgehogs. Amy yowled as her back bore the brunt of the barrage. Shadow kept his focus steadfastly on the sword-toting stranger, although it appeared he'd abruptly lost interest in the hedgehogs
"What was that for?" he yelled over their heads.
"Tangle said she heard shooting," replied a male voice behind them.
Gritting her teeth against the pain of the cuts and scrapes all over her back, Amy turned around. She saw Jet standing on a red Extreme Gear outside the hole in the wall, his green plumage swaying in the crisp winter wind.
"Why are trying to kill Shadow?" she shouted at the hawk dismounted his hoverboard and stepped inside the house, crunching rubble underfoot.
"Kill?" retorted Jet. Lifting his yellow-tinted goggles, he locked eyes with the twelve-year-old. "Infinite?"
"Uh-huh?"
"Stand down."
"Stand down?" spluttered the jackal, "But it's right there!"
He pointed at the Chaos Emerald under Shadow's arm with his ruby cutlass.
"I don't care," snapped the hawk, flinching at a particularly loud crash downstairs. "Go tell Tangle to lay off, would you?"
Glaring at the Babylon Rogue, Infinite lowered his sword and trudged off towards the stairs.
"Could you lose the gun?" said Jet. "You'd make my friend with the hard-light rifle over the road a lot happier."
The handgun landed with a thud as Shadow shuffled around to face their third uninvited visitor. "Why're you here?"
"I was just wondering that myself," said the hawk, "I appear to have been misled."
"Who by?" Amy piped up.
"Mind your own business, kid," quipped Jet without breaking eye contact with Shadow. "Thanks for not shooting Infinite, by the way. Took forever to hire that whiny bastard."
The Babylon Rogue spun on his heel, only to spin back around.
"Amy isn't it?" he asked.
"Uh, yeah?" she replied meekly.
"I was sorry to hear about your friend," said Jet levelly. "You have our condolences."
"Th-thank you."
With that, the hawk lowered his goggles and took a running jump onto his waiting hoverboard. The nonplussed Shadow stared blankly at the rubble-strewn bed and the hole beyond it. He wasn't sure what to make of that flying visit. Something on his mind was preventing him from thinking clearly about anything else.
"What friend?" said Shadow flatly, turning to Amy.
The preteen let out a long, mournful sigh. Her whole body seemed to deflate, shoulders slouching and head sagging as she exhaled. Shadow frowned.
"Amy?" he said, softening his tone.
She didn't look up. Undeterred, Shadow gingerly extended a hand, placed his fingers below her chin and tilted her head up. There were tears in her eyes...
"You weren't supposed to find out," she said, sniffling. "Even Espio promised not to tell you."
"Not to tell me what?"
"It just felt easier to pretend-"
"Pretend what?" Shadow cut in, brushing her bangs to facilitate eye contact.
"That everything was still okay," she said shakily.
"What happened in Station Square, Amy?"
The pink hedgehog emitted another long, drawn-out sigh.
"Vanilla...Cream's mommy. She died yesterday."
Expecting the admission to trigger a flood of tears, Shadow prepared himself to pull the twelve-year-old into an almighty hug. However, the dam didn't break. Amy wiped her eyes on the frayed sleeve of her dress. Wrongfooted, the black hedgehog grasped for something to say.
"If you want to go home, I'm sure Espio won't mi-"
"Nuh-uh!" she blurted, shaking her head so vigorously, multiple braided quills lashed Shadow's nose. "I'm staying right here."
〜
"And perhaps you could allow for the not-so-radical reality that this girl is a chi-"
Rouge paused the episode of Monopole Law streaming on her phone, interrupted by a bang on her cabin door. Rising from her bunk, she crossed her cabin aboard the Babylon Guardian to the sound of further banging. Before the door had fully opened, the bat stumbled backwards, pushed by a certain striped tail.
"Hey," said Tangle, giving a little wave before she stepped aside to make way for Jet.
Rouge took another step back as the hawk advanced into the cabin. One look at his scowl convinced her to hold off on the sassy remarks. She couldn't remember ever seeing the sky pirate-turned-philanthropist so pissed. Her nerves spiked as Tangle closed the door behind her boss.
"Why do I appear to have flown six thousand miles to give a schoolgirl my condolences?" said Jet. "I don't know what your game is, Rouge, but I'm done playing. Now talk."