Chapter Thirty-Two: In Pieces
I spin.
The Energy of the Master Emerald courses through me.
I think of Nova on the backup bridge of the Blue Typhoon, still trapped in her nightmare. But alive. And I will ensure that she remains that way.
"Sonic Driver, FIRE!" Chris cried.
The cannon launched Shadow. He cut through space, straight for the Metarex ship. For a moment, the universe was almost quiet, save for the sound of Shadow's spinning. Then his spines slammed into the Metarex craft.
And the universe screamed.
His spines tore through metal and metal and metal. He had no idea how many layers of metal. When he started to slow, he uncurled from his spin and used the remaining shreds of his momentum to keep fighting as he crashed to the floor of the Metarex ship. The Chaos Energy inside him tried to key in on the fake Chaos Emeralds throughout the ship and he forced himself to ignore their call as he tore through the lesser Metarex.
If Tails couldn't get through to Nova and rip her out of her nightmare, Shadow would stop it at the source.
-X-X-X-
Angel's View
Angel ignored C2's protests over the radio as she slid the Hyper Tornado to a halt on the runway of the Metarex craft. If they got through this, Angel would have a lot to defend herself for among the Time Whisperers. It sounded like a mess her father would get himself into.
He would be so proud.
But as long as her dad was in the clutches of the Metarex, someone had to serve as Shadow's backup. And with Knuckles, Amy, and Nova otherwise occupied, their options were limited. Plus, at least she had magic distinct from Chaos Energy, a source of power she didn't dare tap into with so many fake Chaos Emeralds about.
She wasted no time, diving into the action, blasting through the lesser Metarex as she came upon them. When she came across already fallen Metarex, she knew she was heading in the right direction. Not that she stood a chance of catching up to Shadow, the only known creature in the universe who could offer her dad a challenge in a race. But at least she could serve as his clean-up crew.
-X-X-X-
Amy's View
If it wasn't enough that Amy was resurfacing back to consciousness after being forced to face the corpse of the boy she loved, the blow of a missile striking the side of the Blue Typhoon sent her spiraling.
Her grip on Tails's hand tightened, as if he would be solid enough to keep her steady. But he too was thrown by the blow. For a moment, her existence was flashes of vision that made no sense. She squeezed her eyes shut until she started to still.
Amy opened her eyes to Tails still holding her hand, though he had enough handle on gravity that he had managed to get himself up on his hands and knees. "Damage report!" he shouted.
"Main runway was hit," Chris shouted back. "They were aiming for the Sonic Driver, but it had already been withdrawn. No major systems impacted."
"Amy, you okay?" Tails asked next, eyes snapping to hers.
Tails had regained consciousness as recently as she had, but while he rattled through a plan of action, she was still smarting. She struggled to gather enough of herself together to simply reply, "Yeah."
Amy loosened her grip on Tails's hand so that he could get moving while she worked on remembering how to do so. Her body was beaten, her emotions wrung out, and she was just supposed to keep going? As Tails worked on getting up. Amy worked on dragging herself into a near-fetal position on her knees. Never mind the fact that her body was beaten and bruised; every time she closed her eyes, she saw Sonic's corpse.
Even if it wasn't real.
Even if the nightmare was of a Sonic copy, rather than the real Sonic.
What had Tails seen that he could just move on to the next thing while Amy was left on the floor, scrambling to scoop the pieces of herself back into some semblance of who she used to be?
A hand pressed against hers. Amy dragged her head up and found herself face-to-face with Nova. Nova didn't say anything. She just wrapped her hand more tightly around Amy's and helped her to her feet. "Nova," Amy gasped. Her heart ached with too much rawness to find any words beyond Nova's name.
"You don't have to be okay," Nova said in a low voice. Her curly hair hung limply over one shoulder. Dark bruises wrung the bottoms of her eyes, as if she hadn't slept in days, though that was her primary activity as she recovered from the worst phase of her illness. But now her watery blue eyes focused on Amy's face. "We just have to keep moving in the meantime."
Amy nodded. Then she kept nodding. Not okay but still moving. She could do that.
Amy turned toward Tails standing behind the captain's chair Chris sat in. The pair of them looked at the screen above their heads. Amy inhaled an unsteady breath. Her Piko-piko hammer appeared at her side and she wrapped her fingers around the handle. "Point me at the Metarex," she said. She blinked and saw the corpse of the Sonic-copy that had perished at the hands of Shining Birch.
She was not okay.
She did not have to be okay.
But at least she could try vengeance on for size.
-X-X-X-
Tails's View
To say Tails was disoriented was a significant understatement. It took actual conscious effort to sort out truth from fiction in his mind, and even then, he wasn't convinced all memories were on the right sides of the line. He had seen so many dead bodies.
He needed to wake up.
Chris filled him in on what he had missed when he was jumping through the minds of his friends. Angel had taken the Hyper Tornado to go after the Metarex ship, under C2's protest. Shadow had been fired at the ship using the Sonic Driver. Knuckles was chomping at the bit to dive into the action now that they no longer needed his help with the Sonic Driver. Cream was on her way to the engine room to take over for Knuckles so he could do just that.
Pieces. So many pieces to put together. It was much harder to play chess when you were underwater.
When Amy demanded to be pointed at the Metarex, Tails stared at her blankly. How could she be ready to fight when before, she sought a reason to even keep going? Meanwhile, Tails, couldn't get a grip on what reality was.
He squeezed his eyes shut. "Chris, where do you need us?"
"We have to take out that ship and the Metarex on it; defense on our side won't matter if we don't take out their offense," Chris said. "And we especially need to stop them from using the fake Chaos Emeralds. Whatever trick they trapped you all in was because of the fake Emeralds and we don't know if they can do it again."
Tails nodded. He could follow directions. As long as there were directions, he could read between the lines. "You need me fighting. You sure you've got the bridge?"
Chris smiled at him. "You trained Cream and me well. Right now, we need you doing the thing not all of us can do." His eyes flicked in the direction of the violet Chaos Emerald, now on the other side of the bridge after the blow they'd sustained.
Tails heard what Chris didn't say: We need you to be Sonic now.
Tails's hands curled into fists at his sides. He hoped the gesture would fill him with a fraction more strength. Then he told Amy, "I'm coming with you."
Only for Nova to add, "I am too."
Both Amy's and Tails's eyes snapped to Nova. Despite her fragile form and dark circles ringing her eyes and scars marring her wings, she locked her arms against her chest. Her face was fixed into a glare that dared them to disagree.
So Tails said, "I wouldn't have it any other way."
After all, it was better she went with them than if her obstinance sent her off on her own behind their backs.
-X-X-X-
Shadow's View
Shadow tore through Metarex and ignored how the Metarex metal tore back in turn, digging into his skin. But his greatest complaint was the brutal headache building right behind his eyes.
It was the fake Chaos Emeralds. He knew it was the fake Chaos Emeralds. The way their call interacted with the Chaos Energy in his body. He knew there was more Chaos Energy in his body than there was in the average user of the Chaos Emeralds. He understood it wasn't an incidental part of his makeup but an intentional and critical one, one without which he probably would not exist. He may not have all his memories but that much he knew.
The number of fake Chaos Emeralds on this craft had to be more significant than Shadow had previously experienced. While Shadow was never particularly comfortable around the fake Chaos Emeralds, the intensity of his headache was a new development.
The longer Shadow battled, the more pervasive the symptoms became. After spinning to swing into a hook, dark spots sparked to life before his eyes. He wavered on his feet, his head feeling both too heavy and too light. But he shook off the pain and continued driving forward. After all, he wouldn't eliminate the pulsing ache within him unless he found the fake Chaos Emeralds and destroyed them.
He hadn't yet.
How hadn't he found the fake Emeralds yet?
He tried to follow the ache in his skull like it was a response to a homing beacon. But the signal came from all around him. Like he might run in any direction and find one of the Emeralds. So he tore through the Metarex horde that swarmed him, hoping he would be rewarded with a fake Emerald to eliminate.
All he found were more lesser Metarex.
He gritted his teeth, even as he grabbed one of the lesser Metarex by the wrist in order to yank it toward him to rip it limb from limb. The ache in his head pushed against his forehead. The edges of his vision darkened. The pain built and built in his head, even without a sign of the fake Chaos Emeralds.
Unless.
Unless…
Shadow pulled himself into his spin and shoved the line of Metarex back far enough that he could take a moment to catch his breath. But he wasted no time on something as needless as a full breath. Instead, he scrambled for the twisted remains of one of the lesser Metarex at his feet. He pulled at the plating that made up the Metarex's skull.
And recoiled.
Because nestled among the robotics, was a tiny crystalline shard. A shard of one of the fake Chaos Emeralds.
Shadow's stomach dropped out. He jerked his head up to face the line of advancing Metarex. Dozens upon dozens. Certainly hundreds in total. Likely all with a similar shard embedded in their makeup.
And Shadow's skin started to burn with the heat of anxiety.
-X-X-X-
Amy's View
Once Tails, Nova, and Amy reached the Metarex craft in the X-Tornado, it was easy enough to figure out the path of Shadow and Angel. The remains of ruined Metarex lay strewn about, quiet as a graveyard. "They had this many Metarex and they hardly mounted an air defense?" Nova kept her voice to a whisper, as if she was afraid to disturb a sacred space.
Amy twirled the handle of her hammer in her grip, searching for a comfortable position. A difficult feat when your skin was crawling. "We already knew they were playing games with us," she muttered.
Tails, meanwhile, didn't say a word. Instead, he bee-lined it for the Metarex graveyard. He didn't explain why, but Amy had known him long enough to know his mind was working. "What are you thinking, Tails?"
He didn't answer right away. He squatted down among the wrecked Metarex to take a closer look. Amy watched the scowl deepen on his face. He reached toward one of the beaten-in Metarex skulls.
And then yanked his hand back like he'd been burned.
"They're powered by shards of fake Emeralds," he told them.
Amy froze in place. Nova stumbled forward, like she couldn't believe what Tails said until she saw it for herself. Amy could hardly blame her; she wished she didn't trust Tails, wished he was the type for an ill-timed joke. Anything that allowed for the possibility that this might not be true.
"What does that mean?" Amy demanded.
Tails turned his gaze back toward the ruined Metarex. The frown deepened on his face. Nova wrapped her arms around herself. "Is it just me," she said, "or does this all feel a bit like the ghost ship?"
A chill crawled its way across Amy's flesh, slipping right through the protection of her fur without impediment. The ghost ship from the last Metarex war was the sort of nightmare that stuck in the memory. A silent Metarex ship with all its Metarex passengers frozen in mid-motion, like a wind-up toy that ran out of steam. Shadow had been captured and taken aboard and they'd had to weave through the shells of Metarex. Not knowing if one might actually be awake. Or if one of them might actually be a bomb. In the end, they had been attacked by only a single Metarex, but its threat was in the fact that it was powered by a fake Chaos Emerald.
Amy had to admit the resemblance to their current predicament was chilling.
"Did the Metarex play a trick so that we would walk into a trap?" Amy said. Her voice rose in pitch as she spoke, revealing her fear.
Tails straightened. "I think Rusted Maple is on board this ship."
Amy's eyes widened.
Rusted Maple. The Metarex leader from their previous war against the Metarex. They had needed seven Chaos Emeralds to take on that Metarex, not to mention five users of Chaos Control. And the backlash of the fake Chaos Energy Rusted Maple carried within him had nearly killed them all.
Now they had four fewer Chaos Emeralds and no Sonic to help. Not to mention…
"It can't be," Amy said firmly. Tried to say firmly. Her entire body shook and she couldn't quite tell how much of that shaking was making its way into her voice. "I thought the time changes weren't bringing back the Metarex we fought before."
"It's not like that bit ever made sense," Nova said.
"And I don't know for sure," Tails admitted. He picked his way out of the Metarex scrap. He accepted the hand offered by Nova to steady him as he took the last step out. "I just can't think of another Metarex that would play these sorts of mind games."
"Do the same rules as the ghost ship apply here then?" Amy asked. Her hammer felt heavier than ever. "Does that mean one of the Metarex on this ship is actually a bomb?"
Tails's and Nova's eyes snapped to Amy. And Amy was all too aware of how many Metarex already lay demolished in front of her.
-X-X-X-
Angel's View
Angel was low on magic. Already.
It could be the fake Chaos Emeralds interacting with the Chaos Energy in her body, making her magic twice as difficult to call upon. Or it could be the fact that the further Angel traveled down the hallway, chasing after Shadow, the more Metarex she met. It seemed to Angel that Shadow had done a worse and worse job taking out the Metarex as he went along. There were more Metarex in various states of disrepair but still functional. There were even Metarex left standing entirely unharmed.
Angel's magic sparked at the tips of her fingers uncertainly before it finally rose to answer her call. Pain pulsed in her head like she was desperately dehydrated. Which meant she needed to stop. Otherwise, whatever physical strength she had left would deplete as well. Already her wings were drooping from her back. Good thing she hadn't wasted her limited magic on flight.
Once she destroyed the last Metarex in her line of sight, she slumped against the wall beside her. Her knees shook. She swiped her sweat slicked hair away from her forehead. The hallway ahead of her curved out of sight so that it was impossible to see how far ahead Shadow had gotten or how much further ahead either of them might have to go.
Nor did she know if anyone was following behind—Metarex or friend. Angel twisted around to look back over her shoulder while still depending on the wall for support. All was still behind her as far as she could see in the curving hallway. In fact, all she could really hear was her own racing heartbeat.
It was chilling.
It was…wrong.
Certainly, Shadow had to be as fast as her father, but even though Shadow had gotten a head start, shouldn't Angel at least be able to hear him battling on ahead? Angel pushed herself away from the wall, stumbling back to standing on her own two feet. But if Shadow could be in trouble, she could hardly risk hanging back. Wasn't being a Time Whisperer akin to being some sort of hero?
Even if she seemed to be rather mortal now.
Angel curled her fingers at her side. The resulting fist she could hardly call that, her grip was so limp. What would her dad think of her now? What would her mom think of her if Angel let her lover die?
Angel wavered on her feet. What would C2 think of her if Angel's own foolishness got her killed? And what would happen to a Time Whisperer that died?
Angel closed her eyes tight. What would Angel think of herself if she let someone else make her decisions for her?
When Angel's eyes snapped back open, she made her choice.
-X-X-X-
Shadow's View
Shadow only remained moving because he was already moving. It would require greater brainpower to stop than it did to continue driving forward with the advantage of muscle memory. Which was good, as the onslaught of Metarex had not stopped. Nor had the pain in Shadow's head.
Rather, both had grown significantly worse.
The darkness at the edges of Shadow's vision pulsed in time with the rapid beating of his heart. He could see directly in front of himself but little else. Metarex kept throwing themselves at him from outside his circle of vision. He needed to scramble to throw them free. Probably not without wounds but all other pain paled in comparison to the throbbing within his skull.
He gasped. He skated onward. He threw Chaos Spear and his fist with equal abandon. He heard the blood rushing in his ears. His vision darkened and darkened. But still he drove onward. He needed to find the source of this pain. He needed to find the source of whatever the Metarex were using to have thrown them all into their worst nightmares. Sonic wasn't around. Nova was maybe at fifty-percent. If he failed, there was no one else.
No one.
He was alone.
And then, impossibly, the world was dark. He was still.
He was gone.
-X-X-X-
Nova's View
Nova's body struggled to keep pace with Tails and Amy. She stumbled over Metarex bodies they simply soared over. She should have had her wings to quicken her but while her body had recovered from the worst edge of Airin's, she still didn't have enough magic to waste it on her wings.
Amy glanced back behind her and apparently noted Nova's lagging. She made a point of sweeping her hammer to clear the Metarex remains to leave a path for Nova. Tails, meanwhile, twirled his namesakes like a propeller above his head and floated above all the mess on the ground. His eyes were fixed on the communicator at his wrist. Whatever he looked at was their only guidance, apart from the wreckage Shadow and Angel had left in their wake.
Nova wished they had the headsets Tails had invented during their previous bouts against the Metarex. She knew Shadow would be smart enough to be wearing his. Then, he would be able to report back to her that he was fine. He was fine. He was always and would always be fine. Instead, she was left wondering just how far ahead he had gotten. They heard no signs of an ongoing fight up ahead. All they continued to find was the aftermath. All they could do was follow the breadcrumb trail he'd left behind in this ever-curving hallway.
At least, until Nova's eyes landed on Angel.
Angel stumbled toward them, eyes dull and wings drooping. Her head perked up when she saw them, but all that made clear to Nova was the layer of sweat covering Angel's forehead.
Amy dashed forward. She didn't waste time pushing Metarex debris out of her way but instead danced through like it was nothing more than an inconvenient obstacle course. It meant Nova needed to slow down to pick her less steady way through the wreckage, but the sight of Angel in her current state also meant Nova could hardly care about anything else.
Amy reached Angel and immediately Angel accepted the opportunity to slump against Amy's side. Amy shifted Angel's arm around her shoulders. "I'm not hurt," Angel quickly insisted, though the fact that her words slurred ever so slightly as she spoke was less than reassuring. "Just low on magic."
Tails dropped to the ground as Nova reached their side as well. "And Shadow?" Nova asked. Though she winced at how her words sounded. It wounded like she couldn't care less about Angel's exhaustion. In reality, she struggled to push through the anxiety rising up in her at the sight of Angel. She couldn't fix Angel. So her mind simply jumped ahead to the next tactical difference she might make.
Angel's eyes slid up to meet Nova's. "I was trying to catch up to him, cleaning up the Metarex he left standing. But he's as fast as dad, and I'm out of magic. I was coming back for help."
Nova nodded curtly, though she could feel her heart clawing its way up her throat.
Tails glanced down at the communicator around his wrist. "As far as I can tell, there are still two Chaos Emeralds on this ship, in addition to the one I have. Shadow probably has one of them so if we find the Chaos Emeralds, we'll find him too."
"Angel's in no shape to keep fighting the Metarex like this," Amy protested.
Not that Nova was much better off. She hadn't even used magic yet and already her wings hung heavy. Nova chewed her tongue, scanned Angel up and down. Checked her own heart. It ached like a vital piece was missing with Shadow so far from her side, with a fate uncertain. It cried for him. It tried to drag her toward him, though, she had no idea where she would find him.
And yet.
And yet.
"I'll get Angel back to the Blue Typhoon," Nova found herself saying, even before her mind had given her tongue permission to weave the words. Like it knew what she needed to do even before she did. "And I'll bring Knuckles back with me. You two find Shadow and the Chaos Emerald and Knuckles and I will be your backup."
Amy furrowed her brow at Nova. Like Amy could see what the words were costing Nova. And knowing Amy, she probably did. They had left Sonic behind, after all, and now he was a Metarex. What happened if they left behind Shadow?
But Amy shifted Angel's weight to Nova. She guided Angel's arm around Nova's shoulders, careful of their wings as she did so. Amy whispered, "We'll find him, Nova. We'll bring him back to you."
Nova nodded. Her throat felt too tight to force any words through. But when Amy and Tails went one way and she helped Angel head another, she knew in her bones she had made the logical choice. Even if it was different than the selfish choice her heart wished for her to make.
At least it made her feel less unworthy of the title 'last of her kind.'
-X-X-X-
Shadow's View
Shadow's world had dropped into darkness with nothing more than shards of light with the brevity of lightning flashes across a thundercloud sky. The rumble of thunder was the ache in his head when the lightning flashed. No one-one-thousand, two-one-thousand, but thunder and lightning simultaneous, like the thunderstorm hovered right overhead. He should wake. But the pain behind his eyes made it impossible.
He felt himself sliding across the slick floor beneath him though his limbs were limp. Someone dragged him along then. Only once he made such a realization was he aware of the clawed metallic hand wrapped around his forearm. They had yanked his arm above his head so they could drag his body along behind.
In the snatches of blurry light he caught in the crack in his heavy eyelids, he saw his other arm with the limiter ring secure around his wrist. But if a massive release of energy hadn't dropped him into the depths of unconsciousness, what had? He tried to piece his most recent memories together into a logical order, but like his understanding of reality, it came to him in un-sequential bits.
"Oh."
The voice that breathed that small sound into existence was not a belonging of whoever dragged Shadow along. Instead, it sounded like a voice clear on the other side of the room. Silence followed the brief sound. At least for a moment. Shadow's brain struggled to process time. Too much of his reality was the pain battering against his skull. The pain transformed seconds into hours.
Shadow had never been a religious creature, but his body cried out to whatever power might exist beyond this to make the pain stop.
"It would seem I owe you something of an apology, Rusted Maple." Now that the voice spoke with more than a breath, Shadow noticed the synthetic overtones.
It was a Metarex speaking.
Shadow needed to wake. He needed to wake. But the pain in his skull battered down the sharp edges of such a thought until it was soothed to the softness of candlelight.
The voice continued on as if Shadow was not engaged in a full-out war on the floor. "When you described to me the tests you ran against this so-called hedgehog during your time in leadership, I thought you a fool. However, I cannot argue with the results."
Rusted Maple? Shadow knew that name. That was the name of the Metarex leader during the previous war. But tests? Shadow's barely conscious brain struggled to call such a memory to the forefront. At least, until he remembered straining his eyes open to see Nova's blurry facial features hovering above him. From there, he remembered turning back behind him and seeing the capsule he'd before been encased within.
The ghost ship.
"Ah, Shining Birch, you must see now that you are not the only clever mind among our ranks," cackled a second Metarex voice, one Shadow instantly recognized as belonging to Rusted Maple. Which made the first voice Shining Birch's.
The Metarex leader from the Changed War.
Adrenaline pulsed through Shadow's heavy limbs. Finally, finally this urgency had to be enough to outweigh the pain in his head. Surely, surely.
It wasn't.
Still something held Shadow's control over his body just out of reach. As if drugs poured through Shadow's body that his mind had no chance of overcoming.
Rusted Maple rambled on, "This creature is not a hedgehog at all but something manufactured. Its body survives on Chaos Energy. And when we have enough of our copycat variety about, poof! The circuits simply overload."
Shining Birch sighed, a grating sound, though Shadow's body didn't allow him to so much as shudder. "Yes, as you've said," Shining Birch tiredly replied. "Now is when my part of the plan comes into play."
"Which is?"
Silence hung for a long moment. As if Shining Birch was simply steadying an even stare at Rusted Maple because this was not the first time Shining Birch had explained. But after long enough, Shining Birch simply replied:
"Use him."