Anonymous Review Replies!
Jewel: ahahah, yeah, Shadow is certainly in for an earful if Maria/Gerald gets wind of this!^^; Really glad that you liked the chapter and thanks for your review!
Guest: Neither can Shadow, I'm sure XD Let's see how that works out…;p please enjoy!
Guest: I'm pretty sure *Shadow* also hasn't thought of ShadowxSticks before. XD (I'm pretty sure Sticks is the only one who has…) As for who takes whom to the prom…weeell, first they have to survive until prom! :p
DEV: Oh Gott, ich könnte n ganzes Kapitel nur mit Mobian-Schwachfugsversionen von Filmen füllen XD („Black Hawk Down" wäre ein Psychodrama über einen depressiven Vogel-Protagonisten, es wäre großartig) Mathe giiiing sogar bei mir in meinem eigenen Leben, ich war da eher auf Shadows Seite mit der grenzenlosen Langeweile und Ungeduld :p Schule schreiben macht tatsächlich irre Spaß wenn man sie schon hinter sich hat lol. Ob irgendeiner von den beiden allerdings wirklich Bescheidenheit lernen wird, äh, tja…XD Und, ah-hah, ja, ob es jetzt wirklich Robotnik ist…du warst in der Review Sektion tatsächlich der einzige, der angemerkt hat, dass der gute Doktor mit keinem Wort erwähnt wurde, also…;p Aber Action auf jeden Fall! Und auf jeden Fall wie immer vielen Dank für das mega Review, da freut man sich einfach immer drauf :D
Guest: here you go! :D
LoneGarurumon: What? Noooo, don't tell him that, you'll discourage him XD (poor hedgehog probably hopes he was in Game of Thrones where you can just axe protagonists whenever ;p) I also enjoyed writing the Robotnik family. I wonder whether it's hard to tell that they'd be my kind of people lol. But in any case, thank you very much for the review Bonanza, please enjoy the new chapter! :)
Recap! So, the last time we left Shadow, he had just left school and caught up to the fastest thing alive on his way to battle...will our two heroes survive this day?!
xxx
Chapter 16: Fire-Forged Friendship
Sonic (and therefore also Shadow) came to an abrupt halt on top of a grassy hill – Shadow just skidding a few yards past Sonic at the stop. Evidently the other's sneakers made for more effective short-range braking and changing direction than his skates. He'd have to remember to compensate for that somehow.
"Why did you stop? What is this? One of the Doctor's factories?" Shadow asked, looking at the buildings (although, to be more accurate, ruins) rising down below on the other side of the hill they had arrived on. Despite its wrecked state, Shadow was pretty sure this had to have been some sort of industrial complex before – there were silos, remnants of a high wall around the entire thing, partially broken down manufacturing halls with decrepit, tall chimneys and what even seemed to be jet plane launching runways in between them, ramps leading upwards into the sky like skate halfpipes.
The buildings took up most of the barren plain stretching out below their hill, the unhealthy-looking flat patch otherwise surrounded by a swampy area to the east, a forest to the west and a steep, rearing rock wall on the opposite side. A faint, but definitely stinging chemical smell wafted up from below, letting Shadow scrunch up his nose and further confirm the hypothesis of this being one of Robotnik's factories.
Shadow's eyes roved across the complex but he couldn't detect any movement in it at all. "Is he hiding in there somewhere?"
"Huh?" Sonic gave him a surprised look. "No – I mean, yeah, that's one of his old Egg Bases that I wrecked some time ago, but why'd you think Eggman'd be in there now?"
"Well, that's why we're here, isn't it?" Shadow replied, now only starting to feel a bit wrong-footed. "Because…we're fighting…Dr. Robotnik…?"
But before Sonic could reply, there was already the roar of engines on the horizon, drowning out any answer he could have given. Shadow's gaze snapped upwards and his eyes widened as above the rock wall a giant, half-spherical floating fortress came into view, accompanied by dozens of smaller versions of it. Within moments the horizon was a mass of half-spherical pods, all armed with machine guns and flame throwers - and piloted by a helmeted bird sitting in each of them.
"What," Shadow managed.
"Yeah, pretty much the first thing I said when I saw the Kukku Battle Bird armada for the first time, too," Sonic snorted, then added a grin when he saw Shadow's completely non-plussed expression. "What, you thought Egghead was the only maniac on the planet I fight?"
"…no?"
"Uh-huh," Sonic gave him another grin as Shadow was currently crossing his arms and looking everywhere but at Sonic, right before the blue hedgehog cupped his hands around his mouth and then yelled straight at the approaching battle fleet.
"YO! Grand Battle Kukku or whoever your leader is currently! You've got ten seconds to turn from your course toward Central City or I'll make egg salad from your army!"
"Ahahah! You think you can, Sonic, don't you?" a squawky voice booming from a speaker of the central battle fortress actually answered him. "You can certainly TRY, earth-bound mammal!"
"Alright," Shadow shook his head, turning around. "If this isn't Robotnik, this is pointless. I'll head ba-"
"But neither you nor your pathetic little new side-kick will stand a chance against the Battle Bird Armada! What did you bring, a star fish with legs? A hedgehog fanboy who got under a steamroller?"
"…on second thought I'll stay and crush every single one of them with my bare hands."
"That's the spirit!" Sonic gave him a bright grin.
And that was pretty much the last thing Shadow saw because it was at this point that the fortress' cannon shot at them and the ground exploded beneath their feet.
Xxx
"Shadow! Are you okay?!"
Sonic burst through the cloud of dust and debris raining down around them, green eyes wide and worried. Shadow, currently dusting off his forearm, favoured him with a look.
"Yes. I told you my reactions are as quick as yours. Evading that blast was easy." He cracked his knuckles. "Now let's take them down."
"...alright," Sonic gave him a once-over that finally seemed somewhat impressed, then nodded. "Okay, I'll draw their fire, you...just stay here for a moment, kay?" Sonic said, giving a thumbs-up and then was already gone. More bullets impacted where he had just been standing, the Kukku battle army evidently considering him the priority target.
Well. They would only make that mistake once.
Shadow watched as Sonic raced down toward the decrepit Egg Base, drawing the majority of their fire power behind him. Scattered battle pods were still also taking pot shots at Shadow, but dodging them was almost too easy.
Shadow grinned as he called the Chaos toward his open palm. Two or three Chaos Spears he should be able to manage even without an Emerald to help focus. They would do nicely to bring those flying enemies down. How Sonic actually planned to fight airborne ships was a mystery, though – or was there a power about the blue hedgehog Shadow didn't yet know about…?
Below, Sonic had reached the Egg Base and Shadow's eye ridges rose a little as he watched the blue hedgehog suddenly accelerate even faster, his form becoming nothing but a blue blur that all at once started to wrap around one of the silos, a spiral shooting toward its top and then leaping -
Shadow almost had to suppress a feeling of being impressed as the hero of Mobius collided with the first of the smaller battle pods with crushing force, his form tearing a hole through the lower metal hull and the pilot barely managing to eject from it before it exploded, the blue hedgehog using that explosion to let himself be hurled straight at his next target.
"Ah-hah!" Sonic shouted as he landed straight on what had to be the command center window of the giant battle fortress, clinging to its tilted surface as he was shouting at whoever had to be inside. "Gotcha! I'll repeat my offer to let you leave in one piece one more time…!"
"And I repeat we will NOT!" the speakers droned. "The Chaos Emerald in Central City Bank will be ours! FIRE!"
"Woah! Well, there goes that hope," Sonic said as he landed next to Shadow again, having hurled himself off backwards from the flagship before either of the smaller pods had been able to shoot him. "So yeah, let's try and stall them as long as possible. I called in some air support that should be able to help us take down the flagship – man, flying enemies really are inconvenient…"
"For you, maybe," Shadow said and then couldn't hide a rather smug smirk pulling his lips into a grin. "For me it's an opportunity to do this. CHAOS SPEAR!"
And he hurled a lance of yellow lightning straight at the nearest battle pod, which exploded in a ball of fire.
xxx
"What the hell!"
"What?" Shadow gave Sonic (who was now staring at him with wide eyes) an irritated glance.
"You just blew up – you could have killed the pilot!" Sonic was pointing at the smoke still hanging in the air (and also the – slightly roasted and still with burning tail feathers – bird pilot currently in a wildly flapping, definitely panicking descent toward the swamp area). The rest of the battle bird armada also seemed a little shocked.
"Yes," Shadow said, irritation now definitely showing on his face. "And?"
Sonic looked for a moment like he was about to start shouting again, but this was also when the Kukku army seemed to have recovered – and another bombshell impacted just a few metres from where they were standing, blasting both of them off their feet.
"Well, they seem to have no problem trying to kill us!" Shadow scathed as soon as he had managed to wrench his face out of the dirt and greenery the blast had covered them in, enjoying how another piece of still-raining-down scenery bounced off Sonic's head as he did.
The blue hedgehog groaned as he raised himself onto all fours, shaking the earth from his quills, but still managed to glare right back. "That still doesn't mean that we-!"
"WATCH OUT!"
This time it was Shadow's shout that warned Sonic and the black hedgehog had to admit that whatever else he could complain about when it came to Sonic, the other hedgehog was undeniably fast – bullets tore up the ground where they had just been kneeling, but Sonic was already gone, speeding again over the plain and circling the industrial complex. The majority of the battle bird armada was once more pursuing him, but this time more than a few had stayed behind to fire at Shadow, his earlier demonstration of power now clearly also making him a target.
Shadow grinned. This was just what he had intended.
He let the Chaos unfurl and sing within him, feeling it shoot through his legs and out of his skates, flames scorching the ground beneath him, allowing him to tear along the ridge of the hill as impressively as Sonic had. Now he was racing in front of his pursuers, elegantly swerving around their machine gun fire, a task which was really just too easy – one, two moments of really pushing power into his skates were enough to pull ahead of the battle pods following him and Shadow whirled around.
Again, the Chaos energy was rushing, dancing, burning through his body, and Shadow gave a feral grin as it erupted from his palm when he hurled it toward the enemy airships…
…where it completely fizzled out before reaching them because they were now flying approximately sixty feet higher than before.
The Ultimate Lifeform for a moment gave a very perplexed blink.
Next, Shadow now also had the irrational urge to stare at his hand as if had betrayed him, but fortunately before he could do so (and likely end up with more bullets than quills in his body) Sonic was already back, drawing his own pursuers behind him and shouting,
"Shadow! Come with me!"
"Right," Shadow snapped back into the present and shot off to pull even with Sonic, letting the blue hedgehog lead them in a wide arc back down below toward the complex.
Shadow briefly turned his head toward Sonic, shouting "Do you have a plan?!" just barely loud enough to be heard over the gunfire, engine roars and the wind rushing past their bodies. (A part of Shadow also dearly hoped Sonic hadn't actually seen the display of his fizzle spear just now, but couldn't quite bring himself to ask.)
Fortunately, Sonic gave no indication he had, instead just nodding ahead. "Kind of!" He grinned. "Your speed's obviously alright, so I thought I'd teach you how to take them down my way."
"Your way." Shadow frowned as they were racing toward the industrial complex. "You mean, running up things then hurling yourself at them bodily?"
"Exactamundo!" Sonic grinned even more brightly. "Your sis did want me to teach you hedgehog things, right?"
"Somehow I don't think she meant that," Shadow muttered but didn't care to voice that protest aloud. As he did, they passed under the semi-crumbled gateway of the abandoned Egg Base, slowing a little as they now had to run through the rubble littering the factory roads as well as avoid the hail of bullets and blasts of fire from above.
"You try that chimney!" Sonic shouted, pointing. "I'll take that collapsed crane over there! Just remember to keep accelerating, go at a 30 degree angle and curl up as soon as you hit the air! See ya on the flip side!" Sonic gave an easy salute and then already shot away, leaving Shadow alone and racing toward the looming tower in front of him, debris of the battleships' blasting into the old buildings flying around his ears.
Trepidation briefly tightened Shadow's stomach - this was something he hadn't tried yet. On the ARK there hadn't been any walls higher than three meters to race up. Would he be able to do this? Literally defy gravity? - but then he grit his teeth.
He was the Ultimate Lifeform. The single perfect organism on Earth. A weapon of mass destruction meant to subjugate entire worlds.
Failure was not an option.
And, Shadow thought, he would also rather die in a bullet hail than risk a pratfall in front of Sonic, so.
He accelerated toward the chimney.
Out of the corner of his eye he could see the other hedgehog flash past through the gaps in between the buildings; Sonic was leaping forward and then curling up, revving on the ground for just a second before zooming forward like an azure bullet, evading the now desperate fire as he tore up the collapsed construction crane like a ramp and then shot straight into the sky toward the armada.
And then Shadow couldn't follow his movements anymore because he had arrived at the base of the tower.
Xxx
It was working. It was actually working.
Shadow could feel his heart beating frantically against his ribcage as he was now spiraling around the chimney, gradually climbing in height as the ground beneath him receded, the metal edges of his skates striking sparks against the stone when they scraped past it, bullets impacting into the tower behind him.
The rapid circling around the round chimney almost made him dizzy with the speed needed to defy gravity, but before he knew it, he was already almost at the top – and one of the Kukku airships just a few dozen feet above him.
With a final push of energy toward his skates, Shadow hurled himself skyward.
The impact came as a dull shock. Shadow had barely managed to curl himself up like Sonic as he leapt, aiming for the engine half of the miniature battle ship, and now he could feel the metal crumbling inwards as he crashed into it, sparks and wiring ripping apart as he tore through. Shadow uncurled just in time as he emerged to twist around in the air, giving a final kick toward the damaged aircraft and couldn't help baring his teeth in a grin that felt utterly savage.
"Oh yeah! That's how you do it, Shads! Whoo!"
Shadow couldn't see where Sonic was – the kick had spun him into a backflip in the air and he used the momentum to curl back up and hurl himself at a battleship soaring towards him, crashing straight on top of it and catapulting himself back into the sky.
This was what he had been made for.
There were bullets flying around him. Some of the ships had also started to use flame throwers, fire blasting through the sky but all of it too slow – below, Shadow absent-mindedly realized a lot of the ground had caught fire by now, but as long as he was dancing in the sky like this, what did it matter?
Further up ahead, Sonic was doing the same as before, also crashing from battle pod to battle pod, pilots ejecting themselves and fluttering desperately for safety when hit with a force too fast for them to see coming. For a moment, their gazes even met as they passed in the air, Sonic's eyes gleaming with adrenaline, grin wild, exhilaration shared amid a battle in the sky, flames letting both their coats shine golden as they soared.
For a second, a memory flashed past Shadow's mind's eye - over a year ago when he had been fighting against the artificial Chaos invasion back aboard the ARK with Maria, the first time in his life he had ever had a comrade at his side. Shadow briefly frowned as the picture of the past was gone as fast as it had come as he uncurled again, opening his eyes to see that there were no more battle pods in immediate distance.
Oh well.
Chancing a glance over at Sonic, the other hedgehog also had just reached the apex of his jump, their current area well and truly cleared of Kukku ships and, realizing that, was now letting himself fall back to the ground.
The ground, which Shadow realized as he followed, which was now more or less covered in fire.
"Agh! Dammit, wha-" Sonic had used a couple of the walls still standing to bounce off on his way down (Shadow using his skates to slow his descent mid-air) and landed on a piece of the runway next to Shadow. And then had started coughing almost immediately with the biting smoke around them, unable to finish his question.
"Shoot. That fire is spreading faster than I thought," Sonic rasped in between gasps, gloved hand held in front of his mouth and uprighting himself again as he glanced at the walls of flames surrounding them. "Okay, this is slightly bad-"
"For you, maybe," Shadow allowed himself a smirk. "I dance in fire."
"Not this fire," Sonic shook his head, face now a shade paler. Shadow was about to ask what the blue hedgehog meant when already the battle pods were soaring above them again, the thrusters of their engines fanning the flames and letting them roar higher, gleaming flakes of ash whirling up in the air.
Shadow narrowed his eyes. One of the chimneys was still standing. His fur was fire retardant. He should be able to blast through the flames if he was quick enough, ascend the last tower standing and rain vengeance onto that battle fleet, if he just –
"Shadow, don't!" Sonic yelled, yanking him back just as Shadow had been about to take off, turning his blast forward into an ungraceful stumble. Shadow whirled around, eyes blazing.
"What?!" he jerked his wrist free from Sonic's grasp with irritation. "I told you, I'll be f-"
"Shadow, this isn't normal fire," Sonic interrupted him, eyes wide now with what looked like genuine alarm, "They've ignited the chemicals from Eggman's factory still in the ground, that stuff will stick to you and burn itself into your body, you can't put it out with anyth-OW!"
As if right on cue, one of the 'flakes' whirling through the air had landed on Sonic's glove and the hedgehog gave a pained little yelp, abruptly yanking the glove from his hand with his teeth. Shadow could see that indeed the clump of burning material was now eagerly eating into the white material of the glove, rapidly consuming the fabric, not impressed in the least by any attempt to stomp on it.
And now that Sonic had mentioned it, Shadow could spot more and more flakes of burning, powdery substance in the air, whirling around them. A jolt of pain shot through him as one brushed past his ear, the sensation a combination of acidic and searing. Images flashed through his head, black and white pictures of wars from human history Gerald had taught them about, poisonous substances that burned...!
Next to him, Sonic was coughing even more now, the foul-smelling smoke of the ignited chemicals and factory remnants growing closer like the ring of fire around them. They were trapped.
Dammit. Shadow could feel his own heart beating faster now, the heat was starting to become uncomfortable even for him, and while the smoke was currently visually shielding them from the sights of the roaring airships above, their machine gun fire hitting the factory complex blindly, it didn't help him to see a way out of this mess at all. If only he had a Chaos Emerald, he could try a Chaos Control again, but without it...!
"Sonic," he snapped at the other hedgehog, "Can you remember where the fire was spread thinnest? We need to- we need to-…" was as far as he came, because then he also was wrecked by a coughing fit, eyes streaming with tears and blurring his vision. Unfortunately, while his system was great at dealing with chemical toxins and biological pathogens, it seemed there was nothing Gerald had been able to do about the simple mechanical irritation of smoky air laden with soot particles and worse.
Shadow could feel his vision becoming slightly unfocused in a way that had nothing to do with tears and for the first time felt an actual flash of panic. What if they didn't find a way out of here? What if they would suffocate and burn to death, get riddled by bullet holes if the stray salvos finally found their mark in all this mess, what would Maria say if he never came home after he had promised-
"Ma-Maria…" Shadow could hear himself rasping, barely audible over the roar of the flames and the gasping and coughing of Sonic next to him, the hero of Mobius already on his knees and Shadow realized it was true, he could really die here, without ever having gotten close to achieve what he wanted -
Maria…I'm so sorry.
"S-See," Sonic wheezed at this point, barely managing to turn his head toward Shadow while his body was still being wrecked by coughing fits, "This, this is why I don't take people along," he gasped again, blinking away tears in his own eyes...
...right before, for what reason Shadow could not discern in the least (carbon monoxide poisoning?) the blue hedgehog actually gave something that looked like a smile.
"Well," Sonic rasped, "Except for one."
Who-? Shadow wanted to ask, barely able to keep standing now, the flames almost upon them, when anything else he could have said was instantly drowned out by an engine roar that was louder, more powerful and, most of all, a hell of a lot closer than the air ships of the Kukku armada.
And it sounded like it was heading right toward them.
"Wha-?" Shadow attempted to actually voice his question this time, his head snapping up to look into the direction of the noise. And then he couldn't help but stare.
Because through the flames, jet engines roaring, a red bi-plane was blazing straight toward them.
A red bi-plane, piloted by an eight-year-old.
"GRAB ON YOU GUYS!"
Tails' shrill shout had barely carried over the mayhem going on around them, and Shadow supposed it was his own reaction speed that saved him more than anything else – Tails pulled up just ever so slightly as he barreled over them and he and Sonic just barely managed to leap and grab onto the landing gear, the plane then ascending sharply over the other side of the fire and escaping into the sky, flames licking at their feet as he did.
"Your – your kid brother – flies a fighter plane?!" Shadow was hanging from the landing gear, staring at Sonic with wide eyes. "Just how-?"
"He just really likes planes!" Sonic shouted back, somehow managing a sort of parental what-can-you-do shrug when hanging over a burning chemical waste dump, then grinned. "I said there is a reason I only take Tails."
"Hahah, yeah, I arrived just in time, didn't I?!" Tails called downwards towards them, seemingly evading the now renewed machine gun fire of the Kukku armada with ease.
"You sure did, buddy!" Sonic gave just another slight cough but managed to pull himself up from the landing gear to hang from one wing with one hand and lean out far enough to give Tails a thumbs-up with the other.
"Excuse m- we just almost got burned al-!" Shadow, who had just about managed to pull himself onto the other wing, began to protest, this entire day was insane considering it had started with prom discussions, but then there was just something flashing in Sonic's gaze that let his mouth snap shut again. Sonic just gave him another hard stare, before climbing onto his own wing and turning back to Tails, voice now deliberately cheerful.
"Alright, now let's show these flying cowards just what's what! Can you bring us in close to their flagship, kiddo?"
"Sure thing, Sonic!" Tails called back, apparently quite unaware of their silent exchange. "You wanna go at them head-on, or…?"
"Yeah," Sonic gave a grin that was now definitely tending toward the feral. "Let's. Shadow, you got any more of these…freaky lightning things in you?"
"Chaos Spears," Shadow corrected automatically, grateful to have something else to focus on. Attack the flagship. This was something he could do. "And yes. What do you…?"
"Okay, listen," Sonic said. "I have a plan."
For some reason, Shadow felt just slightly more worried at this than when they had actually been about to burn to death two minutes ago.
To be continued…
Well well well, not Robotnik but at least *some* action, right...? :P Hope you liked, and if you read, please review! :D