Anonymous Review Replies!
Guest: Hahah, no worries, just by commenting at all, you're already ahead of 90% of all other readers! :D Most people just have no idea how much reviews mean to authors. I always love hearing about what people like in particular about a chapter, maybe a joke, or how a character is written. Thanks for the review and hope you enjoy the new chapter!
SOmeGueSt: Ah, yeah, I might take some time to update, but I always try to deliver quality :) I also love infiltration/heist-type missions - particularly when they go wrong lol - so this chapter was a lot of fun. :) If you enjoyed it, I can also recommend my fic "Catch Them If You Can" where Sonic & Co attempt to break into a museum, which...does not go very smoothly. XD Tails and Maria continue to be a delight together, I'm glad everyone is enjoying them as much as I am. Thanks for the lovely review and please enjoy the new chapter!
Shade GUA: Ahahah, I try! And, well, just because the hedgehog in the video didn't appear to be Scourge, that doesn't mean we won't see that particular sweetheart around - he IS one of my fav characters, the total scumbag :) And no worries, Tails is very much alive and kicking for now ;P Thanks for the review, hope you like the update!
LoneGarurumon: Ahahah, what a fantastic comment! XD Made my day. I do think that's exactly what Sonic would write, too :P So happy everyone's enjoying Tails and Maria nerding out, too - these two totally deserve a friend like each other :) As always, thanks for commenting and please enjoy the new chapter!
silverthepast: Hahah, no worries, with Shadow onboard the hero train already, there will have to be differences to SA2 - let's see what they'll be! :P Titan Tails is horrific and I love the complete and utter insanity of early Archie comics like nothing else. Hence Sally being here :D Hope you like the new update!
DEV: Ahahah, ja, ich _liebe_ es, intelligente Charaktere auch tatsächlich intelligent zu schreiben (es sei denn, Blödheit ist gerade witziger XD) Und wer genau der mysteriöse Igel von dem Video ist...nun, wir kommen der Sache dieses Kapitel zumindest eeeetwas näher? Tails und Maria sind DAS dreamteam, die beiden zusammen zu schreiben ist fast einer der schönsten Teile der fic - die sind auch die ersten, die hier eine trans-species Freundschaft aufbauen, ohne sich von Geburt an quasi zu kennen, das find ich eigentlich ganz spannend :) Und dass Tails Schule als Priorität nur ganz knapp unter Infiltration einer Militärbasis setzt, ist natürlich klar XD Eine Konfrontation mit was auch immer sich da noch in der Basis rumtreibt - joa, vermutlich unvermeidlich für unsere Helden, mal schauen wie das ausgeht ;P Das Sicherheitsupgrade für Sonics Zelle in dieser Fic war aber auch bitter nötig, ich fand es immer ein bisschen bizarr, durch Roboter en masse zu pflügen und dann in der Cutscene durch die albernsten Stäbe nicht durchzukommen, was? XD Wenigstens gibt's diesmal kein morbides Gekritzel von einem zum Tode verurteilten Professor Gerald an der Wand ;P Wer genau zur Rettung kommt - nun, lassen wir uns überraschen! Ich hatte auf jeden Fall mega Spaß beim Schreiben der gesamten Szene. XD Wieder einmal vielen vielen Dank für das wundervolle Review, hoffe, dir gefällt das Update! :D
Guest: Good question. Mostly it boils down to the fact that Station Square High doesn't operate on a total traditional year-grade system, I took some inspiration from school models where often several ages are taught together in the same grade, which often happens when it's a rather small school like Station Square High is. Thusly, even if Amy is 14, Sonic is 15 and Shadow "16", they're all in the same "senior" age group/home room class, albeit taking other classes sometimes at varying levels. In systems like this, your home room class/group will fluctuate a little bit each year as older ones leave and younger ones come in, even if everyone will stay in this group 2-3 years in total. You gotta stay in school until you're 15 at least, though it takes a certain amount of credits you need to have collected by then to get your high school diploma, otherwise you gotta stay longer. More credits are required if you also want to go to college after. "Rogue" has technically never stated her age in this fic (though Shadow thinks she's 18 at least). So, who knows how she managed to get into senior year? ;P
Guest: Hahah, glad you like it! To be fair, nearly all the characters have wonderful chemistry together, I love writing Sonic&Tails and Shadow&Maria sibling fluff, Maria and Tails nerding out, Shadow and Sonic absolutely wrecking anyone getting in their way, Knuckles butting heads with everyone, Rouge flustering everyone, and Amy being cheerful and caring and scary violent and obsessive in intervalls. XD That said, more of everything coming up! Please enjoy! :D
Author's Note: Playing a BIT fast and loose with the Sonic games canon timeline and some set pieces, but not in a major way. I mainly wanted to have a specific boss in this chapter, which is one of my fav bosses in the games, because it's just THAT stupid. So enjoy! XD
LAST TIME...
Well, well, after GUN has wrongfully imprisoned Sonic in Prison Island because some Shadow doppelganger stole an Emerald, Tails, Maria and Shadow have mounted a rescue mission! They arrived at the island, where apparently(?) some other attack is already going on in the other half of the base. So, while Maria and Tails continued to surveil the situation from a control room, Shadow has managed to find Sonic's cell! Only...teleporting inside using Chaos Control hasn't worked out *that* well...
Chapter 22: Catch Them If You Can!
"We need to get out of here."
"Uh, yeah," Sonic commented at Shadow's frantic pacing, the blue hedgehog leaning once more against the wall. "Kinda what I've been trying to do for the past five hours since I woke up in here, dude."
Shadow whirled around. "Maria is out there with Tails and in danger without me! She should never have come here and if something happens to her-"
"-wait what? Maria? You brought your human sister with you here to Prison Island?!" Sonic stared at him, flabberghasted. "Shadow, are you insane? You're aware that humans, like, manage to break their ankle if you only drop them six feet, right? Seriously, they bruise if you look at them the wrong way, why-?"
"Yes, thank you, I'm aware," Shadow managed between gritted teeth (although now that Sonic was saying it, he kind of felt inclined to defend Maria's capability on this mission; none of his thoughts made sense anymore recently) "But it wasn't like she left me and Tails with another choice."
"Ah," Sonic winced. "Stubborn girl, huh? Well, I kinda have experience with those," he added wryly. "Still, that means she and Tails are at the moment our only hope of getting out of here. I don't think anybody else even knows-"
"…Sonic? Are you in here?"
There was a bit of a pause. Then both hedgehogs in the cell very, very slowly turned to the door to their prison tract that had just opened again. And stared at the pink hedgehog standing in it.
"No," Shadow said.
"Shadow-?" Amy started, visibly surprised at seeing him there, but the moment her eyes fell on the other hedgehog, Shadow seemed to be largely forgotten.
"SONIC!"
"Amy?!" Sonic exclaimed, looking just as flabberghasted as Shadow at Amy who had all but flung herself at the forcefield, pressing her snout flat against the invisible barrier. The next second, however, Amy was already stepping back and putting a finger against her lips at Sonic's exclamation.
"Shh! Sonic, keep your voice down," she chastised, putting her hands on her hips. "We need to be stealthy and stuff, don't you know that this is a super secure prison complex?!"
"Yes. So. What are you doing here?" Shadow finally managed to find his voice again and apparently reminded Amy that he existed, too.
"What I am – scratch that, what are you doing here?" Amy shot back, recovering from her surprise. "Did GUN frame you too?! I read that they accused Sonic of stealing an Emerald, but-"
"I…no," Shadow replied, then blinked. "Wait, you don't think I framed Sonic?"
"What? No," Amy shook her head immediately, looking at Shadow with confusion. "You're my friend and a good person, why would I think that?"
"I…" Shadow had opened his mouth to reply, but found he suddenly couldn't speak, something inside him tangled up and making it impossible to draw breath.
"No, GUN didn't frame him," Sonic stepped forward, putting a hand on Shadow's shoulder with a smile. "In fact, dude showed up to rescue me."
Amy blinked. "He…came to rescue you?" Then she pointed out the inevitable, her finger indicating Shadow's current location. "But, uh-"
"No. Comments. Please." Shadow stared resolutely at the floor.
"Rescue didn't quite go to plan, huh?" Amy once again gave him the same compassionate smile she had had when Shadow had claimed his special powers included making risotto. "Well, have no fear," she said, then twirled once around her own axis, doing a cute pose: "Amy Rose is here!"
("This is the low point of my life," Sonic muttered next to Shadow.)
"How…how did you even get here?" Shadow was aware, somewhere, that there were more pressing concerns here, but he still couldn't quite let go of the topic.
"Well, duh, Sonic's in danger, of course I'm here!" Amy shook her head laughing, while Sonic shot him a Yeah-I-honestly-don't-know-either look.
"Now are you sure you don't need my help?" she asked, addressing Sonic with a wink. "It looks like you could uuuse it…" she sing-songed, also drawing a key card from the pocket of her dress and waving it teasingly next to the pad that would release the cell locking mechanisms.
"How did you get a key card to this place?" Sonic stared at the thing, shaking his head again.
"Oh, you know," Amy smiled, twirling one of her spines slightly around her finger while giving them a flirtatious wink. "Feminine wiles and all."
"Wait," Shadow said with a frown. "When crawling through the vents earlier, I saw a guard who looked like he'd been beaten unconscious with a giant hammer. Was that-?"
"Feminine. Wiles." Amy was suddenly a lot closer to their cell barrier again, also brandishing said giant hammer and not actually separating her teeth when speaking.
"Okay! Okay!" Sonic had immediately raised his hands in a gesture of peace. "Feminine wiles. Gotcha. Now can you please let us out?"
"Hm, I dunno," Amy pursed her lips. "If I do let you out, will you marry me?"
Sonic pinched the bridge of his snout, sighing. "How about I promise to show up to prom?"
"Works for me!" Amy lit up and then turned toward the keypad, sliding the card through the slot at its side, and the forcefield flickered out of existence, at the same time as the bars started sinking into the floor. As they did, Shadow noticed a few dark patches and tears at the back and sides of her dress, as well as a blackened tip of one of her quills. Sonic evidently did, too, because he drew in a breath.
"Are…are those burn marks?" he asked, suddenly sounding a lot less non-chalant. "Ames, are you hurt?"
"Oh, I had a run-in with Eggman earlier but I got away, no big deal," Amy waved him off. "Okay, now that-"
"What?! The Doctor? Where?!" Shadow was in her face immediately as soon as the bars were low enough to leave the cell. Amy stared back at him, wide-eyed.
"I, uh, somewhere in Block D, I think? I fought him and then ran away, and at first he followed but then he was just like 'I don't have time for this' and walked off in the other direction, so I don't actually think he's here for Sonic…"
"Right. Let's go after him and finally find out what he's up to this time," Sonic nodded. "You coming, Shad-"
"No."
"No?" Sonic stared at Shadow, surprised. "Weren't you all gung-ho about-"
"Yes," Shadow gritted his teeth. Of course, the presence of the Doctor at the other end of this complex and the havoc he was likely wreaking there explained the absence of soldiers they had faced. But still…
"First…I need to know Maria's safe. I need to head back to Block B where she's with Tails in the surveillance room." Dammit.
"Ma-Maria?" Amy asked, head turning to stare at Shadow, wide-eyed. "But isn't that – did you bring your human sister here, Shadow?!"
"Uh-huh, he did," Sonic nodded. "Couldn't believe it either, totally unsafe."
"SO unsafe!" Amy exclaimed, now suddenly looking a hundred times more worried. "Shadow, don't you know humans can die from, like, falling down the stairs, they're basically raw eggs on legs, why-?"
"Yes, thank you, I'm aware," Shadow ground out between closed teeth. "Which is why I would like to go now and make sure she's okay."
"Right," Sonic agreed. "Better safe than sorry. You lead the way."
Amy nodded. "Let's go. We got your back, Shadow," she smiled at him, and, not for the first time, Shadow wondered whether it was at all appropriate to feel warm in a prison base.
xxx
"Tails!"
"Maria!"
Sonic and Shadow's shouts came simultaneously as they burst through the entrance of the surveillance room, fortunately not having encountered any resistance on their way there. Inside, both the fox kit and Maria were still at their stations, expressions of joy lighting up their faces as they saw the successful return of their friends.
"Sonic! They managed to get you out!" Tails had hopped immediately off his chair and whirled into an embrace of his older brother who returned it with equal enthusiasm.
"We managed to track your progress for most of the way and erased all recordings after, but the cameras keep glitching especially in the prison wing and there was no audio in Block C at all, so we didn't catch everything," Maria added, "But glad you made it back in one piece. And you must be…"
"Hi, I'm Amy Rose," Amy gave a small wave. "I'm Sonic's girlfriend."
"Not my-"
"Ah, so that's you!" Maria exclaimed, together with Amy also completely ignoring Sonic's protest in the background, "Shadow told me about you, you sit next to him in homeroom class, right? Thank you very much for helping my brother fit into the school," Maria said, inclining her head in a small, deferential bow, before giving a wink. "I'm sure he could use it."
"Maria-" Shadow began, edge of his eye twitching, not at all liking how Amy was now giggling together with his sister, "-has everybody forgotten we still need to get out of-"
But then he fell silent, mostly because one of the erratically flickering surveillance monitors had just switched on again and was now transmitting a crystal clear image. And a very familiar voice.
"I'm in position, Doctor," Rogue the Bat, pressed against a wall somewhere in the complex and talking confidently into a walkie-talkie while apparently unaware of the security camera back online, smirked. "Just tell me when."
"Wha-wait, Doctor?" Shadow repeated in a hiss, everyone else already staring at the monitor where the next moment another voice rang out from the walkie-talkie and even through the twice-distorted electronic conversion its booming words were still crystal clear…
"Unfortunately, there's been an unexpected delay on my end. I ran into Amy Rose." There was a pause. "I have NO idea how she got here."
"Uh, yeah," Tails interjected at this point, "Amy, how did you-?" he started, but was pretty much shushed from all sides immediately. "Right. I'll try and see if I can find his location-"
"Amy?" Rogue asked on-screen, white face now curiously an expression somewhere between disbelief and slight alarm. "Not that pink hedgehog girl from that chaosforsaken high school, right? I mean, you didn't-"
"No," the electronic voice from the walkie-talkie grumbled, sounding slightly frustrated. "She got away."
"Oh, I see," Rogue replied, a flash of what almost looked like relief briefly crossing her face, even if her voice only gave away casual interest at best. Then she frowned. "…Wait, she got away?"
"Well-"
"A fourteen year old girl."
"Look."
"Got away."
"It's not-"
"From you, the tech genius planning to conquer the world."
"I AM NOT EMPLOYING YOU TO GIVE YOUR OPINION!"
"You gotta admit it's a little bit funny," Rogue said brightly, bat fangs flashing in a wide grin at the camera she still hadn't noticed.
"Rouge, either you go and GET those emeralds now or I WILL forget myself. There's no more time to waste. We will have to set the timer for fifteen minutes."
"Fifteen?" Rogue's – or Rouge's apparently – expression now transformed from a highly amused grin to a predatory smirk. "Doctor, five minutes should be plenty. Oh, and I also got the rest of the info on Project Shadow you wanted, by the way. The stuff that wasn't on the Prison Island servers."
Shadow tensed as, of course, everyone else in the room was immediately looking at him with varying degrees of confusion. Maria also bit her lip, but there wasn't much they could do right now except to continue to listen to the exchange while Maria and Tails were already furiously hacking away at the Terminal trying to find out where Robotnik's location could be. It was pretty clear that the disturbance in Block D that had so handily distracted all the guard personnel was his handiwork, but whether he was still there was anyone's guess.
"Oh? Excellent." The voice purred from the walkie talkie. "Anything immediately important you could find out?"
"Well, my observations at the school seem to indicate that he has a temper but can be reasoned or...bargained with, if there should be a run-in," Rogue/Rouge said, looking contemplative. "I sent you the full report."
Amy opened her mouth to say something at this new bombshell (which only confirmed everything Shadow had already been thinking, thank you very much) but the next moment-
"Alright. I've set the timer. Meet me at the rendez-vouz point and you better have those Emeralds with you. We're leaving in fifteen minutes."
"Aw, no challenge after all? Alright, see ya!" the bat flashed a last grin into the camera before already disappearing towards the ceiling and off the screen with one powerful beat of her black wings – and the spell in the surveillance room was broken.
"That lying-!" Shadow swallowed everything he wanted to say about a certain bat woman at this point, and instead turned to Tails and Maria. "-could you find out where the Doctor is?"
"I think so," Tails nodded. "I've decrypted a few reports that seem to indicate he is definitely in Block D, but on the retreat. His transport must be in the jungle on the other side of the complex, he's likely going out the same way he came in."
"I compiled a map with the fastest way to where he should be," Maria said, hitting a button that showed a route through the building, including already destroyed walls in Block D. "It's quite a way from here, but-"
"But me and Shadow can get there before he has a chance to get away," Sonic nodded. "If he's retreating, then we don't have much time before GUN soldiers come crawling back here into Block B. And I'd prefer to be gone when they do."
"I think we all would," Maria said. "Alright, so let's split up."
"Gotcha." Sonic replied. "Ames, you stay with Tails and Maria, okay? Protect them on the way back to the Tornado and we'll meet up outside where Eggman is."
"Wait, but what about the Emeralds that Rouge person is about to steal?" Tails asked, swallowing. "Shouldn't we three go and try to stop her?"
"No," Sonic shook his head. "Too dangerous, I want you three out of here. No Emerald is worth anyone of you ending up in one of their cells."
"Besides, that bat said she'd meet up with my cousin outside, right? We can catch her then," Maria pointed out, effectively cutting off the near-simultaneous expressions of protest forming on Tails' and Amy's faces. "Let's go before we lose more time."
"Fine," Amy nodded. "But Sonic, watch out for Shadow alright? Maybe he's fast, but don't get him into any roughhousing like you'd do with Knuckles, okay?" she asked, directing a firm glance at Sonic before reaching out to gently squeeze Shadow's shoulder, giving him an encouraging smile. "No worries, you can feel safe with Sonic. Just follow his lead."
"Look," Shadow said, once again a little bit desperate to properly express his general status as a WMD to a girl who assumed he couldn't take care of a schoolyard bully (and both Maria and Sonic trying not to dissolve into giggles was not helping) "I'm not-"
"I'm sure you are!" Amy said brightly, then turned around. "Alright, Maria, Tails, did you finish with the surveillance tapes? Can we get going? Have you plotted a route? Let's go, chop-chop!"
"Alright!" Maria nodded, quickly packing things together. "See you outside, Shadow!"
"Our general heading will be north-north-west outside, Sonic, that's where I saw something on the island that might be landing site," Tails said, and Sonic nodded.
"Gotcha! Be there in fifteen min at the latest."
Shadow blinked, for a moment taken aback by everyone just falling into step like this was a coordinated effort instead of three completely separate parties having met up in a bit of a clusterf-
"You ready?" Sonic's voice cut through his thoughts and Shadow blinked. Then he rallied. "…Yes," he said, before allowing himself a smirk. "And if you're not sure where I and Sonic are, just look for explosions and a decapitated Doctor."
xxx
"Decapitated Doctor'? Really?" Sonic shot him a side-glance as they raced through the complex, red lights flashing past them in a blur.
"What," Shadow ground out, not that interested in conversation. They were already halfway out of Block B and all that mattered was getting to Maria's cousin before he got away.
"Well, I thought we had talked about maybe not killing-wait." Sonic grabbed Shadow's arm to bring him up short and Shadow had to suppress the urge to snatch his limb away with a growl. "The route your sister suggested leads through Block A, the vault, not C, the prison. We gotta take a right here."
"You sure?"
"Pretty sure. I've gotten massively good at instant-memorizing floorplans of military bases, if you can believe it," Sonic flashed a brief, cocky grin. "Didn't you grow up on a space station and should be used to layouts like this, too?"
"The layout of the ARK was…complex, alright?" Shadow snapped, not caring to share that his sense of direction was sadly far less acute than most of his other ones. He still remembered how he had run around in circles for ages during an invasion of fake chaos monsters, once. "Let's get on with it already."
"Alright," Sonic nodded, already taking off with Shadow following an instant later. "Tell ya the truth, I'm not sad about not having to go through Block C again, anywhere I was locked up gives me the creeps afterwards." The part of his face Shadow could see was briefly pulled in a grimace. "At least Block A only has things locked up, not people. Maybe we'll even run into that bat-"
Sonic stopped talking. Or maybe Shadow just couldn't hear him anymore.
That had mostly to do with the fact that they had just run into one of the storage bays of Block A, and he instantly remembered the room.
"-adow?" Sonic's voice was coming to him as if through a thick fog, and for a moment, Shadow wasn't even certain what was real anymore, what was memory and what was a nightmare.
"Shadow?" Sonic's voice came through a bit clearer, this time, accompanied by a slight shake at Shadow's shoulder. They had stopped running? When had they…?
"The…the pod," Shadow managed, his own voice raspy and seeming to belong to someone else. Not someone who had almost…
"This, this is the pod they put me into when-" he broke off again, still staring at the empty capsule in front of him, its black insides calling to him like an abyss to a jumper. There was the cryogenic apparatus behind it, the one meant to put the one inside the pod into a frozen almost-stasis, and there were the needles still glinting inside, the one that had been meant to sink into his skull to reprogram him as a weapon of GUN. The gas tubes meant to turn the atmosphere in the pod into a sedating miasma under an airtight lid, the restraints meant to hold you in place…
Block A only has things locked up, not people, Sonic had said and now Shadow almost wanted to laugh.
"Shads. Shadow, hey. Focus on me. Whatever you're seeing, it's not real. Can you focus on my voice? It's me, Sonic. The amazing guy whose guts you hate, remember?"
There was a second hand grasping his other shoulder now, and suddenly Sonic's face was filling his vision instead of the pod, words drilling through the noises of his memories through sheer persistence.
"Dude, you go any paler and you're about to look like Mr Silver. Don't faint on me now, we're in the middle of Prison Island and I don't fancy a second rescue operation, alright?"
"I'm…I'm not about to faint," Shadow managed to scrape together, a small amount of indignancy surfacing through the waves of nausea and panic.
"Great!" Sonic encouraged him, tone just a bit too bright. "Okay, so just stay with me, right? You're safe…ish. As long as no soldiers burst in here and start shooting at us, which is where the -ish comes in and why you really need to snap back into the here and now-"
"Shut. Up." Shadow ground out, closing his eyes and grinding the heels of his hands into them, but at least the other hedgehog's incessant babbling did have the effect of chasing away the flashes of memory, the explosions of claustrophobia in his gut.
"As soon as you stop freezing on me, buddy, I will," Sonic said, before his voice dropped into a lower, more serious register, "Okay, listen to me. I know the feeling, alright? I froze up in one of Eggman's dungeons once, when I had to go back there. If this reminds you of anything-"
"It doesn't remind me," Shadow cut through Sonic's words, tone scathing, "It was here. GUN tried to lobotomize me and put me into storage for 50 years."
"…oh. Oh wow. That's…" Sonic stared at him, speechless for once.
"Yeah."
"Does that mean-" Sonic's gaze snapped away from him, eyes roving over the rest of the storage bay, searching.
"I don't think there are any other experiments in storage here." Shadow's lips thinned, thinking about the video file. "Or at least, not anymore. Let's go."
"Right," Sonic nodded, Shadow appreciating that at least the other had the sense not to ask unnecessary questions. In another second, they were away again, crashing through the gate of the storage bay on the other side, toward Block D. Hopefully not too late…
Xxx
"What the -?! More intruders! Fire!"
"Shoot! Back that way!" Sonic shouted, once again grabbing Shadow and pulling him into another corridor as they ran into their first group of soldiers only a minute later. Clearly, Block D was a lot more populated, sounds of shouting, pounding boots and gunfire now adding to the cacophony of sirens.
"We will never reach the Doctor in time if we keep dodging all confrontations," Shadow snarled, pressed into an alcove next to Sonic as soldiers ran past the opening to their corridor, oblivious. "This block is crawling with humans."
"Yeah, well, I'm all ears for any better ideas," Sonic shot back. "And not any that involve a death toll."
"I got that, no worries," Shadow gave the other hedgehog a flat look. Then his eyes narrowed. "…How fast can you go, exactly?"
Sonic raised his eye ridges. "That a trick question?"
"No."
"Then the answer is yes," Sonic replied, eyes gleaming. "What's your idea?"
"We go through."
"Huh?"
"I'll shock them – shock them, mind you, not kill them," Shadow cut off the expression of protest already forming on Sonic's face, "and then we race through them in the second that they're dazed. That's the fastest way to Robotnik."
"Okay," Sonic nodded.
"O-kay?" Shadow echoed, feeling slightly surprised at the little resistance this obviously extremely risky plan was met with. Maria would have given him a talking-to until the next morning.
"Sure. Sounds fun, to be honest. And barring that incident in the cell, your Chaos powers seemed pretty powerful, so…"
"Right," Shadow nodded.
"That is, if you don't think you're not fast enough," Sonic said, grinning, and Shadow felt his lips actually stretching into an answering hint of a smirk.
"You're on, bub."
Xxx
Shadow wasn't exactly sure whether that last phrase had been him accidentally channeling Wolverine the Wolverine (a very…imaginatively named Mobian character in a mutant superhero movie franchise, even if inexplicably played by actor Hugh the Jackal) but even if it had been, considering their surroundings of a military complex where he'd almost ended up as an experiment to be turned into a weapon, Shadow figured the comparison would have been apt.
All thoughts of pop culture reference frames vanished, however, as they finally turned the next corner and stared down at approximately half a dozen soldiers just as surprised as them – for a second.
"FIR-!" one of them started to yell, but Shadow had reacted even faster.
"CHAOS SPEAR!"
The energy raced up his arm easily, unloading from his fingertips like lightning, a bolt of firebright power hitting the ground in front of the soldiers and exploding like electric wildfire in all directions, blinding and dazzling.
"RUN!" Shadow yelled and in that split second, they did.
If he had to guess, Sonic had reacted perhaps even a millisecond faster than him, but the solid grip of the blue hedgehog's sneakers on the metal floor was an advantage over rocket skates when it came to taking off.
As it were, Sonic exploded like a comet unleashed, Shadow following close behind, channeling all of his energy into just pure speed. Time seemed to slow around him as his brain kicked into higher gear to compute the sensory inputs rushing at him, desperately trying to calculate movements that wouldn't end up with him dead.
Shadow could see the bullets erupting from the barrels already aimed at them, the slow, clumsy motions of the human men and woman in front of them as they tried to aim against the blazing light, and he moved.
Next to him, Sonic zipped to the left and then the right, before sliding underneath the projectiles aimed at them; Shadow leapt out of the way of the first wave and came down hard, rolling underneath the second.
There was a wave of fire coming at them from behind as one of the bullets had apparently hit something they shouldn't have and Sonic used the shockwave to propel himself into a jump, grabbing the foremost two soldiers by their shoulder pads and yanking them with him as he made an airborne somersault over their heads, making them fall over backwards into their comrades out of the way of the flames.
Shadow took great pleasure to weave around the flailing legs of the fallen humans as he followed, right before using a still standing one's chest as a stepping stone and kicking the weapons out of two other's hands with a mid-air roundhouse kick. The man he had jumped on collapsed beneath, falling down with a thud! just before Shadow's feet touched ground again and he was already off, racing after Sonic too fast for any bullets flying after them to follow.
Xxx
"Hah! Oh man, that worked!" Sonic was grinning from ear to ear as they were rushing along the last corridors toward where Robotnik should be, sounds of fighting up ahead growing louder in the ears.
Their tactic of Shadow stunning anyone coming across them with a Chaos Spear thrown onto the floor in front of them and then simply revving their speed up to eleven to whirl through any soldiers like participants in a lethal Cirque du Soleil, bullets whizzing past them, tazer wires arcing through the air like glistening streamers for a deadly dance performance, automatic firing systems and drones exploding in a fiery symphony when the two of them crashed into their casings, had indeed worked beautifully. Sonic admittedly moved with the quicksilver grace of an artist; Shadow knew his own patterns of evasion and disabling were more direct and brutal, but definitely just as fast at getting the job done.
"Yes. Now let's just hope we're still in time," Shadow muttered, just as they arrived at what had to be the place where the Doctor was battling GUN's forces, judging from the pandemonium and smoke coming around the corner. It couldn't have been more than a few minutes since they had set out from the surveillance room but his pulse was racing as if he had been running for his life for hours.
They turned the corner and stared.
In front of them was…chaos.
They had definitely found the point of entry the Doctor had used, because the room they were staring at was a sort of giant hangar, filled with crates and boxes that had been used for storage, but which were now strewn about every which way, either busted or actively being blasted through the air, and it also had a giant gaping hole in one of the walls with daylight and jungle noises filtering inside. Which was helpful, because the atmosphere in the hangar was thick with smoke from explosions and minor fires, which at least could somewhat escape through the large hole.
Not that much of the jungle noises from outside could be heard. This was mostly because the hangar was also filled with GUN soldiers and GUN attack drones, more and more pouring into the room from other doors as reinforcements arrived, humans shouting, taking cover behind containers and firing their weapons.
Firing them at…well.
To Shadow, it looked like a giant spider…crab…roulette…thing? It was a mechanical contraption with a flattened spherical body, at least 14 feet tall and suspended on four spindly legs wildly stalking around the hangar, kicking crates and boxes every which way. It seemed to adhere to a red-and-yellow-and-orange colour scheme, and then it swiveled and Shadow saw…a giant metal moustache emblem over three slot-machine-like picture wheels. Which were spinning.
"OH-HO-HO-HO-HO! YOU CAN'T DEAL WITH THE EGG DEALER!" a booming voice shouted, as the three spinning wheels all stopped, all showing a picture of a bomb.
It then proceeded to drop multiple explosives, which once again had everybody scrambling for cover, while the Doctor was now hollering something about "BOMB FEVER! GET READY FOR A REAL BLAST!" even as one of the bombs then promptly proceeded to blow off the lower part of one of the contraptions' own legs. Next, it seemed to pour out what looked like a flood of chicken-shaped guns as it staggered all over the place, people screaming and scrambling to get out of the way.
"What…what the hell," croaked Shadow, watching the madness. Sonic, next to him, nodded with a frown.
"I'll say. This is a bit weird."
"A bit-?!" Shadow was grasping for words, broadly gesturing at…everything inside the hangar.
"Yeah. I mean, he's used the Egg Dealer already when I fought him three months ago. He usually never reuses any contraption." Sonic frowned even more, crossing his arms. "Also, back then he had built this evil amusement park to capture aliens for their energy, so the Egg Dealer was actually thematically fitting. It doesn't make sense at all to have it in a prison complex in a jungle."
Shadow stared. He felt like he had understood all the words in Sonic's sentence separately, yet…
"YOU KNOW WHAT THEY SAY! THE MORE THE MERRIER!"
Robotnik's voice boomed across the hangar again, the Egg Dealer then dropping in short succession small orange robots with spears, more chicken guns and then bombs again (which mostly blew up the robots) while GUN soldiers kept ineffectively firing at the thing and trying to get some bazookas positioned to deal some actual damage.
"And that's also one I've heard before," Sonic snapped his fingers, "…way more times than I wanted to, actually." He shuddered, then narrowed his eyes at the Egg Dealer. "Yeah, Shads, I don't think he's actually in that thing."
"You mean...you mean this," Shadow said slowly, pointing at the obviously insane robot, "is a distraction?"
"With some pre-recorded voice bits and an AI that's even worse at aiming than he is, yeah," Sonic said, nodding toward the inept robot. "I don't think it's coincidence it looks like no one has been hit by anything or apparently even seriously injured. Because, I mean, like, they're humans, even something minor as just getting slammed into a wall-"
"Yes I get the picture," Shadow tried hard to stop himself from pinching his snout. "So where do you think-?"
"Best guess?" Sonic pursed his lips. "Escaped the same way he arrived to set this contraption loose. We'll just have to follow that trail into the jungle."
Shadow chanced a look at the rain forest outside the hole in the wall, a greenish madhouse where insects, swamp things and slimy lianas probably awaited.
"…great."
xxx
"Okay, so I realize this isn't the best time to be asking this," Sonic started, as they had dodged past the madness in the hangar, just two more projectiles in the overwhelming chaos (though Sonic had taken care to spin-dash through at least one of the legs, sending the Egg Dealer to helplessly flail on the side), "But you said GUN tried to keep you in a pod…?"
Shadow darted a brief glance over to Sonic. There didn't seem to be any suspicion or fear in his tone or expression, just honest curiosity - and maybe a touch of concern?
Shadow gritted his teeth, the jungle flying past them. The canopy overhead was far too thick to hope to catch any hint of Tails' plane maybe already circling overhead, or, alternatively, see the Doctor already taking off, their chase having lasted too long. Even if it likely hadn't even been ten minutes since they'd left the surveillance room.
"Long story," Shadow managed. He wondered what story Sonic had pieced together with the bits he'd already found out – the 'accident' aboard the ARK, him trying to keep his powers hidden, Rouge's mention of 'Project Shadow' and his…episodes around flashing lights and tight metal surroundings – the other hedgehog wasn't booksmart like Maria or the fox kit, but he could be damned fast on the uptake regardless.
But he had also not told anyone at school about Shadow's powers even when he would have been able to save himself from unjust punishment. Shadow could feel the muscles in his jaw clench.
"GUN tried to claim me. Use me. Professor Gerald came to get me out before…anything happened." He could feel his lips pulling back from his teeth just briefly. "They have NO RIGHT to me."
"Woah, okay, dude, no arguing from me," Sonic quickly reassured him, raised eye ridges indicating that perhaps Shadow had said that last bit slightly more aggressively than intended as they raced on, leaping streams and dodging roots, lianas and broken trees in what had to have been the wake of the Egg Dealer making its way to the military complex. "I mean, you don't have to tell me everything, but considering another you just beat me unconscious to land me in prison-"
"There IS no 'other me'," Shadow cut Sonic off, his tone arctic. "If anything, there is-"
"What the - wait wait wait, do you see that?!," Sonic had just grabbed him, evidently not listening anymore and abruptly coming up short, emerald gaze fixed somewhere near the top of the treeline. "HEY!" he then yelled, pointing, and Shadow finally saw what he had spotted – a black-and-red hedgehog, standing on the highest branch of the tree on the opposite side of the clearing ahead, staring back down at them with eyes as crimson as Shadow's own. And a Chaos Emerald in his hand.
"That's…" the thief, Shadow wanted to say, the impostor, but words would just not quite make it out of his mouth. The other dark hedgehog was even wearing the same shoes and rings as him. There was literally no difference apart from the Emerald. No one would be able to tell them apart. Despite what he had tried to tell himself (and Sonic) earlier, seeing this….no longer on a grainy video, but in real life...
Any uniqueness, the trait that Maria had told him made every person precious and irreplaceable, replicated away.
Now he was just a clone experiment among many.
"Yeah," Sonic nodded, apparently along the same lines of thought as Shadow, before he stepped up next to him and cupped his hands around his mouth.
"Yo! We finally found you, you FAKER!"
To be continued…
Ohohoho, happy holidays! :D Hope you enjoyed the chapter and if you wanna cheer my day up a little, please leave a review, they mean the world :3 Always love hearing about fav parts, jokes and characters!
Also, if anyone else is already in a Christmas mood (and hasn't read them yet), I of course recommend my seasonal Sonic fics of "All They Want For Christmas" and "A Christmas Carol" which feature all our favourite heroes in various holiday-themed disasters :P Cheers!