Chapter 77

The Beginning of the End

Elysium sparkled under the soft pale touch of twilight. The neon signs and advertisements had been shut down, and only a few cars still soared in the air. In the quiet, Shadow was able to take in its complete was a grandeur to its design and aesthetic that captured the imagination. The shapes of the buildings were softer and more rounded which gave them a sense of beauty as well as purpose. From afar, it truly looked like a painting of the ideal future.

Shadow contemplated the scene as the glass elevator descended the Central Tower. The beauty in front of him did nothing to stem the doubts nagging within his heart. "I've never seen a city so quiet at night."

"There is a curfew," Maria explained. "Nothing draconian, just an order to be back at your designated residential suite by midnight. The city requires heavy maintenance, so we don't want people interfering with the crews."

Shadow nodded absently. Of course a city floating in suspended animation would require a stupendous amount of energy and manpower. Yet he also knew that the humans in his timeline never cared about practicalities. If a rule existed, half the population lived to break it. "How many people live here anyway?"

"Two million. Elysium is the capital but it isn't the most populated. Atherius was the last to be built and has a population of over five million."

Shadow folded his arms. "So few have survived."

"Humanity has been given a fresh start. It won't be like before. We used to just spread ourselves out, even when doing so was at our disadvantage. Now the population only grows when there is a need and we have the space."

"And who makes that decision?"

Maria inched closer to him. "I know what it may sound like, but you have to understand what we've been through. Anyone who came here from before understands that there is a price to safety. Utopia's are not made from on high and pressed down on a people, a people must be willing to give things up in order to form one."

Shadow had no answer to that. In truth, he did not know why he had a sense of foreboding about everything around him. How humans choose to govern themselves made no difference to him.

"Are our worlds that much different?"

"No," Shadow admitted. "A day may come when we have to endure the same troubles that you have. Perhaps we have been lucky thus far."

"It is a strange thought," Maria said, placing her pale hand against the glass. "If there are other worlds, too many to even fathom, what is the point of this one? Does all our toil even have a purpose?"

"What do you mean?"

"There could be a thousand other Maria's right now, having a similar conversation with a thousand Shadows. What makes our life, or our choices unique or important?"

"What does it matter?" Shadow countered. "We're here now, if something matters to us, then it matters."

"And can we choose what matters to us?" Her hand slid slowly off the glass. "How can we be sure that our desires are even our own?" She frowned and for a fraction of a second, Shadow saw a swirl of light blue in her eyes. Thud. The elevator came to a halt and her eyes returned to normal. "Follow me."

Shadow trailed behind as they entered an underground lab. Personally, Shadow was sick of these kinds of places. He expected to see long halls filled with white fluorescent light. Instead, the place was cramped and covered in partial darkness. There were rooms everywhere and every turn was tight and narrow. "Where are we?"

"The Acropolis of Orthodoxy, or just the Acropolis for short. It is where the Doctrine Keepers do their work."

Shadow peered down the seemingly never ending branch of pathways. "And what kind of work is that?"

"The human race has been greatly diminished, as you already pointed out. Life is held in high regard here. While there is little crime, there are still many criminals. They are brought here to be reeducated. Ministers use the Dreamcast to go into a criminal's past and find out why they act the way they do. This way we can reform them and make them positive members of society."

Maria stopped in front of one of the many hundreds of plain black doors. Red numbers marked it as room 9999. She drew out a small bronze key and fitted it into the lock. The door churned with a low ominous clang. Maria pushed the door open and walked inside. Shadow felt he had just entered a medevial torture chamber. The walls were plain stone and the room consisted of one cold steel table and one chair. There was a machine fitted into the wall. It was the only thing futuristic about the room. The machine was white with a red spiral glowing on the top. It hummed louder as Shadow sat down on the table, almost as if it could sense its next prey.

"Just lie back." Maria said as she pressed on the controls. Shadow did and the steel bed was icy cold against his fur.

"I….Do we really have to do this?"

Maria wheeled her chair around so that she was sitting beside him. "It is the only way I can confirm who you are. But…I understand if you don't want to."

"It just seems…intrusive."

"Elysium is not known for respecting privacy. The Hidden Mind is the Hidden Dagger. That is the slogan of the Doctrine Keepers." Maria looked troubled. Her hands were shaking slightly.

"Did you used to work here?"

She nodded. "For a few years…"

"What made you leave?"

Maria's shields seemed to lower. Her shoulders relaxed and she had to cover her face with her hands. "A woman was brought here. She lost her child and was unable to complete her duties. I…I made her forget. Two weeks later they found her on the pavement…" Maria moved her hands. There was no trace of emotion on her face. "We think we can reform the mind, but there are some mysteries that are beyond our science." Maria looked firmly at Shadow. "You must understand the risk. This machine will allow me to look into your memoires, but it also gives me the ability to erase them. You will not even know if I have. I can only give you my word that I will not, but you will have to trust me."

Shadow squirmed slightly on the table. He didn't like the sound of that at all. Breaking out would be easy. Maria still had the red Chaos Emerald, he could take it from her and escape. But what then? He knew nothing about this world. Shadow inhaled slowly and nodded his head. "I trust you."

Maria placed two cold pads on his temples. "I'll also need to take a blood sample." She produced a syringe and lowered the point on his arm. Shadow cringed slightly and turned his head. Maria giggled. "The Ultimate Life form huh?" She took the full syringe and emptied the blood into the Dreamcast. Maria then placed two pads on her own temple and sat down next to him.

"You know, you really are different from my Shadow."

"Oh yeah, in what way?"

"My Shadow has never been afraid." Her hand drifted over to the Dreamcast and hovered over the on switch. "That also means that he has never been brave." Maria pressed the button. Shadow felt a small jolt that pressed his neck into the table. He expected pain but none came. Instead a slow release of fatigue washed over him. His eyes grew heavy and fell shut. Shadow did not dream.

The next thing he knew he was sitting up on the table. The room slowly ebbed into focus. Maria was standing by the machine putting it away. Shadow's mouth felt dry and his body felt stiff. He wondered how long he had been sleeping. Maria idled by the Dreamcast. It was almost five minutes before she finally turned around. There were dried streaks of tears on her face.

"You told the truth."

Shadow nodded. "What happens now?"

"Now I will help you return home. I don't see the harm in it."

Shadow hopped off the table. Together, he and Maria took the elevator back up the central spyre and returned to her penthouse. "It is late, we will journey to the surface in the morning." She said nothing else as she locked herself in her bedroom. Maria had hardly even looked at Shadow the entire way back.

Watching herself die probably unnerved her. Shadow laid on the couch and stared up at the ceiling. He wondered what his Maria would think about this new world and her future doppelganger. "Do you believe you know Maria Robotnik more than I do? Fool, I have known her across a million streams of time." The Realm Lord's voice echoed in his mind.

Shadow curled his hand into a fist. The Realm Lord didn't know everything. He didn't know about Maria's pain and her doubts. Shadow could trust her, not because he had known a million Maria's but he had…..What? His chest heaved painfully. Shadow would not say that, not even in his own mind. The thought was too painful, too unendurable.

Shadow meant to stay on guard all night, but sleep slowly overwhelmed him. His rest was largely interrupted except for two intervals in which a sound woke him. By the following morning, Shadow felt refreshed and restored. Maria, on the other hand, did not seem to have slept at all. Bags hung under her eyes and she avoided his gaze as they packed into her jet car.

They soared over the city and Shadow had his first glimpse of Elysium in the daylight. It reflected the radiance of the sun and appeared as the perfect golden city. Whether or not it was truly a utopia, Shadow could not say, but he could at least admit that it looked the part.

As they passed over the city, Shadow noticed a nearly transparent barrier that enveloped everything. "That's the bubble." Maria explained before he could ask. "It keeps the pressure in here stable since we are so high up. It also keeps the city safe from the radiation on the surface."

They stopped at a checkpoint that served as a passageway in and out of the bubble. Maria showed an I.D badge and was permitted to exit the city. Outside the bubble, Maria dived down and they passed through the upper layer of clouds. When they did, Shadow let out a gasp. The air here was practically yellow. Far below, the surface seemed to have been turned into an endless desert. A geiger counter in the plane's console started to light up.

Maria pressed a button and let go of the controls. She sighed and leaned back in her chair. "It will take a while to reach Little Planet."

Shadow turned to the window. There was nothing to see except a cloudless sky and an utterly barren earth. "Want to play I spy?"

Maria chuckled. "I suppose the view doesn't match the one at the Space Colony Ark?"

Shadow hesitated. "No…it doesn't." The barren landscape vanished as the plan automatically rose higher into the sky. "Did you go somewhere this morning? I thought I heard you leave and come back."

Maria did not look at him. "Just went for a walk. I had a lot…to process."

"I'm sure going through my memories wasn't pleasant."

"That's not it. Just…" She turned towards her side of the window. "I wondered, you know, what would happen when I used the Dreamcast. I mean, I knew I would see my other self, but I wasn't sure what that would mean." Maria munched on the inside of her lip as she struggled to give words to her feelings. "It was like remembering a dream that I had long forgotten. There were things…just little things, that I almost felt I recognized. But…that isn't possible. It's like you said, there doesn't seem to be anything that connects the timelines. The Maria you knew, may as well have been a completely different person and yet…"

Maria wrestled with the thought but appeared to abandon it. She sighed. "I don't know how to feel about her. Should I pity her? She was everything I never wanted to be. Weak, imprisoned, fleeting, with no ability to make her mark on the world. But the more I saw of her, the more I felt for her."

"Maria was not weak," Shadow corrected. "She endured a lot. Her strength may have been hidden but it was there."

"I was sick as a child too, you know? Only my father was able to create a cure. He went to prison for his experiments, but not before saving my life. I can still remember the days passed in my sick bed. My father would try to make me face the window. He wanted me to hope for the day when I could go back out there and play like any other child. I refused. I didn't want my life to be controlled by dreams I would never achieve. I wanted my life to matter, I wanted it to mean something, to be a life that made a mark on history. Dreams are for the sleepers, I thought." She looked over at Shadow. "Your Maria was a dreamer. She spent her whole life wishing to be somewhere else and never got there. But in the end, her life still made a difference. She saved you and all those other people on the Ark. I haven't done anything like that."

Shadow did not remember deciding to do so, his hand simply acted on its own accord. He reached out and squeezed Maria's hand. She recoiled at first, but then returned the gesture. "You're here now," Shadow said. "Helping me, just as she would."

Instead of comforting her, his words seem to break her. She pulled away from him and wrapped her arms around herself. "I…I'm going to try and get some rest. I hardly slept." She leaned her chair back and closed her eyes.

They passed the rest of the journey in silence. As the hours passed, Shadow noticed that Maria's breathing hardly changed. He knew that she was still awake, only pretending to sleep. Shadow turned towards his window and watched the sky.

After what felt like ages, the console lit up and Maria jerked upright. She resumed manual control of the jet and descended closer to the surface. The ground was the same barren desert, only this time the flat plain was broken with the occasional rocky spyre.

"There!" Shadow pointed. In the distance, a gigantic metal sphere floated eerily in the air. Little Planet was pinned to the surface by a dozen iron chains. Each link was the size of a house. An outer layer of machinery had been added to the surface of the planet.

Maria flew in that direction. There were no signs of life anywhere. The surface of Little Planet had been completely transformed into a robotic hellscape. Automated machines zoomed over the landscape, taking no notice of the plane over their heads. Maria directed the jet down a long tunnel. It led them into the heart of the planet. Shadow felt his stomach twist as all the splendor and ancient shrines of Little Planet were replaced with metal housings for more mechanical industry.

"What happened here?"

"Ivo." Maria said bitterly. "After Sonic died, he waited for Little Planet's next return and chained it here. He mechanized the planet and used its dimension shifting properties as a fuel source." She pointed to large slowly moving pistons. "These dig into the surface for the fuel. Ivo used the power to create the floating cities."

"And what happened to those that lived here?"

Maria shook her head. They delved further into the sanctuary. Shadow saw the stone busts lying in broken heaps on the floor, replaced by metal scaffolding. "Will there be defenses?"

"None that I can't operate. Ivo doesn't care about this place anymore. It served its purpose. We hardly get any new energy here anymore. The planet has been sucked dry."

The great statue, whose spine Shadow had once descended, was now being used as a frame for Eggman's machines. Maria was forced to park as there was no more room for the jet. Shadow leapt out of the cockpit and waited for Maria to put on a helmet. "The irradiated air from the earth may have infected here as well." She explained.

Together they journeyed on. Shadow kept his hand on the wall. The artwork from before was covered and effaced by technology. After a few minutes of descending down the winding slope, Shadow came to a halt. There was a space free from interference. On the wall was a painting of a blank planet encompassed by mist. Shadow let out a shuddering breath. Where was the symbol? He strode forward and put his hand on the wall. This was the same image he had seen from the Little Planet of his timeline. Only, the symbol of the Realm Lord was missing.

"Are you alright?" Maria stood nearby looking at the image.

"I…" Shadow's heart seemed to skip a beat. He could not explain why he suddenly felt afraid. "I'm alright." He turned away and they continued onward. When they reached the bottom of the ramp they found the gilded temple laying in ruins. The basins filled with imperishable fire had gone out. They stepped over the broken pieces and the shards of the torn down door.

The fountain in the central chamber was broken. No color emitted from the shrine at the far wall. Shadow hurried forward, not noticing Maria linger by the exit. The Time Stones were in their casing but they were without color. Shadow tried to reach for them but an invisible barrier held him back. "What does it-" He caught a glimpse of movement in the reflection of the barrier. Shadow spun around.

A gray hedgehog with blood red stripes stepped into the light. He held two Chaos Emeralds in his hands. The hedgehog spread out his arms and smiled. "Welcome brother, to the beginning of the end." There was a flash of light. A knee dug into Shadow's stomach causing him to double over in pain. He fell to the ground and saw the other hedgehog towering over him.

"Shadow!" Maria cried. This prompted the other hedgehog to turn around.

"No…." Shadow groaned. "Leave….leave her alone…"

The hedgehog looked down at him. It was almost a perfect reflection, except Shadow had never smiled that way before. It was a crazed, euphoric smile that made the hairs on Shadow's back stand on end. The gray Shadow spoke. "Well done Maria. Let's bring him back to the tower."