Sonic Series Fan Fiction ❯ Verisimilitude: Invasion ❯ Enemy Victory ( Chapter 5 )

Keiji: This is being written while a tornado rages outside.
Kiraa: Well, I don't know if you can call it tornado. Swirling, gusting, winds with hail, yes; tornado...not so sure.
Keiji: Point being..that the powers out. No power means no Internet, so I have nothing better to do with my laptop time besides write.
Kiraa: On a completely separate note, we just found out that Shadow's Japanese VA, also does to voice of Ichimaru Gin in Bleach. If you ask me, that's a huge can of cool beans!
Keiji: Meh, still don't like the guy. I'm not much of a 'bad guy' lover.

Anywhoo, this chapter has given me a question I need to ask you. Should I, or should I not, use Japanese honorifics. For the most part I'm asking because there were many times in this chapter I wanted to add 'san' to the characters names to show the level or respect other characters have for them. But I refrained from doing so since I don't use any other Japanese in the story. But I still think it would sound better and more true to the characters if I added it in. So what do you all think. READER OPINION TIME! Drop your thoughts in a review.

Kiraa: As a final note, we thought that in this chapter we would finally make it back to mentioning the Black Arms and what their up to, unfortunately Chaos wanted to play some more, and Shadow demanded that we be fair and beat on Sonic a bit. So this chapter was extended in length and the Black Arms stuff will occur in the next Chapter. See ya there folks!

Disclaimer: I do not own Sonic the Hedgehog, or any of the other character from this franchise. They belong to Sega and the people that created them. This is a work of fan-written fiction by Stari Zmaj studios and is in no way being used to make monetary profits.

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“Electricity can be dangerous. My nephew tried to stick a penny into a plug. Whoever said a penny doesn't go far didn't see him shoot across that floor. I told him he was grounded.”

Tim Allen (1953 - )

Chapter 5

Enemy Victory

 

SLAM! SLAM! SLAM! SLAM! SLAM! SLAM!

 

To say that Amy was getting exasperated at the noise would be one heck of an understatement. If she'd had her hammer she probably would have hit Knuckles upside the head by now, or helped him try to open the main door out of the complex. But she didn't, which meant that she sat on the sofa of the room in which she'd woken listening to the echidna beat away against their only hope of escape.

 

She tried reading some of the books that could be found resting on the bookshelves of the room, but it was hard to concentrate with the constant noise in the background and she'd quickly given up on that method of passing the time. She'd also gone exploring a little, mostly because she was in desperate need of locating the little girl's room and was not about ask Knuckles for those kinds of directions. What she found in her wandering was nothing short of the most complex and technologically advanced shelter she had ever seen. And a shelter it must be, there were rooms made to house many people, the common area she'd woken up in was just one of many. She'd also found a set of stairs that led down to some lower levels, but she hadn't dared to explore that far.

 

SLAM! SLAM! SLAM! SLAM! SLAM! SLAM!

 

And Knuckles had been wailing at that door the whole time. With a sigh Amy stood from her seat and headed down the hall. She wanted to get out as much as Knuckles, especially after the echidna confirmed that it had been Mecha Sonic that had brought the both of them here, but if they wanted any hope of escape the echidna couldn't let himself get exhausted at the starting line.

 

The hall eventually split, one path leading further into the complex and the other angling slightly upwards and towards the door that Knuckles was trying to beat into submission. And he was failing miserably at that, Amy judged as she turned the last bend of the tilted floor to come upon a section of more flat ground.

 

The door Knuckles was trying to get through was made of an odd golden material, its color reminded the pink hedgehog distinctly of the rings around her wrists. It was strong too, Knuckles had obviously been punching at it for quite a while before Mecha had brought Amy to this prison and it only showed the barest of scratches for all his efforts.

 

There was an odd reddish discoloration on the door that could be seen only for a second before the blow of one fist or another blocked it from view. It took Amy several of Knuckles' punches to realize what it was.

 

“Knuckles!” her cry of dismay brought the echidna out of whatever 'zone' he'd been in as he startled at the cry and turned a confused face to her. Amy wasn't paying attention to her fellow prison mate's face at that point, she'd rushed forward and grabbed one of Knuckles' wrists. The echidna wasn't able to hold back on the pained squawk as she ripped the glove off the captured limb to reveal the abused hand underneath.

 

Even though Knuckles' gloves were heavily protected and made specifically to guard his hands, the wear of his constant punching was showing painfully clearly on the knuckles and fingers of his hand. The skin had been completely rubbed off from his knuckles and some of his fingers were at odd angles that made Amy want to turn away, though all she did was gape in horror. The limb she held shook ever so slightly, the muscles unable to follow the the echidna's command to 'fricking stop twitching and cramping.'

 

Eventually Amy did find her voice though, quite loudly in fact. “WHAT ARE YOU DOING!?”

 

Knuckles flinched at the sound, she was right by his side...and ear, and damn if she didn't have one heck of a loud voice at 'quite' times. Despite his annoyance and the fact that Knuckles had actually been doing good, what else would a person call trying to break from their prison, he still in, an odd way, felt like a kid caught with his hands in the proverbial cookie jar. He tried to pull his hand out of Amy's grip, but the pink hedgehog had a tight hold and this hold was from a girl that regularly wielded a hammer almost twice her size. The only way Knuckles could've gotten away would have been to hurt her, and he was far too honorable and proud to strike a female.

 

Especially if that female's actions were motivated by concern, no matter how pride-damaging that alone was. Amy glanced at the glove held in her other hand, and at the red stain that had seeped through the clothing's many protective layers and even splattered against the door. “I was trying to open the door.” Knuckles muttered as she stared at the red, it was hard to see how much blood there was because of echidna's fur, but it must have been quite a bit she guessed.

 

“By trying to cripple yourself!?” Her voice was not on the volume of her original outburst but still painfully high. Knuckles frowned at her, unable to put to words his motivations. Speech just wasn't his forte, and he had no way of describing to the girl his desperation to get out of this jail. Not when his last couple memories consisted of the Master Emerald shattering so spectacularly, not when Mecha Sonic showed up every couple days to drop him tidbits of foreboding news. And not when, despite being used to underground places, this 'shelter' brought out the claustrophobe in him. He just couldn't describe the odd desperation to get out, especially when he was for the first time faced with an object that would NOT yield to his strength.

 

It was a good thing Amy wasn't looking for any explanations though, her gaze was now focused ahead as she marched down the hall dragging a scowling Knuckles behind her, though the echidna only offered token protests. “There's got to be some sort of first aid thing around here, isn't there?” She asked as they passed the first split through which she had walked only minutes earlier.

 

“Second floor.” Knuckles grouched back in reply, causing the pink hedgehog to stop and stare at him. “Second floor, down.” he elaborated and Amy's face took on an 'oh!' expression before she was once again pulling him along, though this time with a more distinct goal.

 

The stairs were surprisingly long and once at the bottom Amy was forced to stop, no longer having any clue of where to go. The second level of the complex was very different from the almost homely look of the first. The walls of the single long hall that stretched ahead of them were of plain gray concrete, with a single simple wooden door set in each one of its sides. One door was close and to the right, a little further down was another door but this one on the left, and far at the end of the hall she could see a third door. She could also see a big hole in the wall right by the stairs, and recognize the tell-tail marks of another of Knuckles' digging attempts. This one had been stopped short by the electric wire that ran right behind the wall and audibly buzzed with the level of voltage that was running through it.

 

Seeing that she wasn't moving any time soon on her own, Knuckles took the lead now pulling her along behind him. They headed straight for the far door at the end of the hall which split right in front of the opening, a shorter narrower hallway leading to a fourth darkened door to the right and an even darker path entering a positively gloomy staircase to the left. Ignoring these other paths Knuckles opened the door in front of them and Amy pointedly noted that he used as little of his fingers and as much of his palm as possible to accomplish the task.

 

She was expecting a storage closet or maybe a room full of supplies, but what was beyond the door was nothing less then a fully equipped three room hospital; first aid kit indeed. Before they cold make another move though, both heard the distinct sounds of metallic feet coming down the stairs and turned to see the form of Mecha Sonic casually step down the stairs and then walk the hall towards them. Amy could hear a deep hateful growl rumbling from the echidna beside her as the robot approached.

 

Was this it, was Mecha going to kill them now? Maybe they weren't allowed down here or something? Or maybe...

 

“Have you injured yourself again?” Or maybe he would just ask if Knuckles was okay in his own mechanoid sort of way. The echidna's growl just lowered in pitch as a response. Mecha Sonic seemed to slouch slightly, if he were a real person Amy expected that she might have even heard a sigh come from the robot. “If you keep this up we will run out of medical supplies far in advance of predicted sustainability.”

 

The mecha had stopped to speak only a few feet away from them, but now moved forward again, putting his hands up in a shooing gesture at Knuckles, trying to force the echidna into the medical room. With more bravado then she actually felt, Amy moved in front of the still snarling echidna in a comparatively pathetic attempt at defense. In this narrow hall, with Knuckles injured and her without her hammer, against Mecha Sonic, would have been a pathetically one-sided fight. “What are you going to do?” Despite the poor odds, her voice at least sounded full of confidence and challenge.

 

Confidence that went completely unnoticed by the robot before her. “The continued health of the targets is prime prerogative.” Was his only explanation as one taloned hand shoved her aside heavily, but carefully not forceful enough to cause her to fall, and the other pushed Knuckles through the door and deeper into the room.

 

The echidna though, regained his footing quickly. He was inside the room, but there still wasn't enough space to allow the mecha to enter. For a long minute the two glared at each other, neither side flinching an inch. Finally though, Knuckles' eyes flicked to the side as he stepped away and allowed the robot to enter. To Amy it looked like this scene had played itself out many times before, with less then pleasant endings for the echidna. She hadn't missed that slight spark of fear as he'd finally stopped snarling and moved aside.

 

“If you could please go attend to the new guests on the first floor.” Mecha Sonic said to her before entering the room and closing the door behind him. The last look Amy got of Knuckles was of a defeated red figure, head bowed and both fists held tight in shame despite the pain that move must have caused the injured limbs. She looked down at her hand that still held the glove she'd ripped off one of those very same limbs as she turned away from the door.

 

She didn't want to abandon Knuckles, but Mecha Sonic had said he was supposed to 'take care of their health' in so many words, not that she trusted him all that much though. But from the robot's few lines she could glean that this wasn't the first time the robot had been forced to patch Knuckles up so it would be okay, right? But most pressing of all though, as Mecha's last sentence sank in, was the 'new guests' the robot had mentioned.

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With the words finally registering past her confusion and shock she sprinted down the hall, up the stairs, and back to the first common quarters by the entry portal. She ran right into the room, not knowing what or who to expect. Inside was a very concerned looking Vanilla the rabbit who looked up at the figure that rushed in with a considerable amount of surprise. In her arms was a sleeping Cream which the older rabbit held tightly to her while a worried Cheese clung to her shoulders.

 

Being electrocuted was an odd experience. For either a horrid second, or an even worse eternity, your mind goes blank and white, unable to coordinate its own electric impulses during the sudden overload. While your brain figuratively collapses your muscles spasm without control, incapable of telling the difference between brain commands and the invading electricity. Of course the heart and lungs are muscles as well.

 

The first thing a person realizes when the electricity fades is the fact that they have to breathe. That they literally have no breath left, they might as well have been punched in the gut several times. As if the lack of lung coordination isn't frightening enough, there is nothing quite like FEELING your heart loose its beat, skip, stop, over-beat, and other frightening things that hearts should NOT do.

 

When a person comes out of being electrocuted it is to a deep sense of fear and exhaustion, caused by the brains overload. And confusion; it is so difficult to orient yourself when the mind is completely incapable of working properly.

 

“That went too far.”

 

“Actually, that went almost perfectly, minus that accident at the end.”

 

“NO, this is being needlessly cruel! Look! He's not waking up!”

 

“Aww, the urchin's fine. A little shock now and then never did me any harm, did it?”

 

“Of course not, you've only lost all your marbles in the process.”

 

“Eh? Why would I want to keep marbles?”

 

“Silence! The both of you!”

 

A foot prodded Shadow in his side, once, twice, by three times the foot was kicking not pushing. Shadow groaned and tried to roll away as he opened eyes to see a bleary white world. A figure was leaning over him, and even while he was having trouble grasping what exactly was happening now, he clearly could remember the fight against chaos. With another groan Shadow closed his eyes and let his weight roll him back onto his stomach. Everything hurt, his whole body was one giant cramp, but the pain wasn't the only thing keeping him down. He felt exhausted, as if he'd just run a year long marathon with no rest breaks. If Chaos wanted to finish him, for that one short moment didn't have the will to stop him.

 

“Che, that's it?” That voice sounded suspiciously familiar. As in, blue hedgehog familiar.

 

“You know what your problem is? You don't put your all into things and you just give up too quickly.”

 

Shadow growled, he was tired and in pain yes, but Sonic had no right to be talking about him like that. What would the blue idiot know. Sitting up more forcefully then he had actually thought he was capable of he turned to snarl some choice words at the blue hedgehog that had been kicking and belittling him.

 

But there was nobody else in the circular chamber. He was still at the sight of the battle, the cable still buzzed in the water not three full feet away from him, the door through which he had entered was shut tight while the opposite one was open, but there was no sign of Chaos in the room. Sitting up he checked his wrists and ankles, the rings were still there dispelling his one semi-valid excuse to be hearing voices. Or maybe it was just a very vivid dream? He rubbed his side and ribs, for a dream that last kick had been pretty real in the pain department. In fact...it still hurt, even now.

 

Hurts? Wondering he brought his hands up to the jagged gashes Chaos had made during their fight but instead of finding great strips of areas with missing flesh he only found a few sore scratches and cuts. That wasn't right, he could feel the fur around the area matted thick with blood, and he knew that he was an unusually fast healer, but not this fast. More pressingly, how had he gotten out of the water anyway?

 

The black hedgehog stood up, frowning at the ditch and its electric accessory. And then almost nose-dived right back into the dangerous drink as the entire ship rocked with a loud explosion and leaned to one side. Shadow dropped to his hands and knees and did an odd scuttling cockroach impression to escape another dose of the charged waters. He'd rather be 'Shadow the bug' then 'Shadow the roasted hedgehog.'

 

The ship only took seconds to right itself, but it was more than long enough to kick the black hedgehog's adrenaline production back into gear. As soon as the world was right side up again, Shadow dashed for the hall. It was long, large, and straight, different from the narrow and constantly branching paths he'd been walking through before the battle. But most importantly, it did not have pools of pain inducing water. Shadow guessed that he must be near some sort of major area of the ship, and that Chaos was more then likely up ahead, no other reasons to make such spacious hallways. Although why the monster hadn't finished him off, again, Shadow couldn't understand.

 

His right hand reached behind him and pulled out his Chaos Emerald. Its light was far duller then normal, and for reason's incomprehensible to him the chaos energy coming off it was at an all time low. Fear of something like this was why he hadn't blasted away at Chaos with the energy from the very beginning of the fight. But his caution had proved in vain, it seemed, because this Emerald seemed to have also finally kicked the bucket.

 

There was a crash from up ahead, and the entire ship shuddered again. This was quickly followed by a long roaring screech that Shadow guessed to be Chaos. He couldn't think of anything else that could make such a sound. Putting the Chaos Emerald back between his spines, and the problems of its uselessness and why Chaos had let him keep this one on the back burner, he dashed down the hall. Nothing rose up to challenge him as he ran through the few splits that there were in the path, always following the ever-growing cacophony of combat up ahead. In these sharp turn conditions his hover boots were worth ten times their weight in platinum and gold.

 

Another explosion caused the ship to shake and lean again, this time the explosion was followed by a blast of air that whistled down the hallway Shadow was in. The sudden change in pressure made his ears pop, but as soon as the ship righted itself he was off again. Up ahead he could see a large opening, the door of which had already been blasted away.

 

Shadow ran into what looked like a docking bay area. There were smaller, fighter type, planes on one side of the large rooms walls, and its floor could be dropped down to open to the outside world. In fact, that was exactly where the fresh air was coming from. The door, it looked like, had been damaged by the explosion of one of the nearby small planes, the wreckage of which must have fallen through as the bay doors hinges failed entirely and opened the large gap in the floor.

 

Shadow only had a few seconds to study the scene before he had to duck from a blue blur that flew over him at head level to impact with the wall to his left. The blue form promptly fell to the floor on its hands and knees with a groan and revealed itself to be a slightly worse for wear Sonic. The two hedgehogs were on a catwalk area surrounding the main floor of the bay, and down below, near the large open doors, was Chaos.

 

Shadow immediately noted a difference though. Four sparks of light glowed within the creatures' body, Chaos Emeralds, and the thing seemed to have multiplied its power by an equivalent number as well. In general it was larger and meaner looking, and it had a rudimentary jellatin bone structure which protected its brain organ thing.

 

“Where the heck have you been?” Sonic grouched at Shadow as he regained his feet, good thing too because at that point Chaos decided that leaping up to them was a glorious idea. The monster's new, larger, and much heavier body crashed onto the catwalk and the two hedgehogs were forced to dash in opposite directions to avoid the its deadly claws. With a wailing groan the metal of the catwalk gave way under the extra pressure sending Chaos falling back to the floor below. Unfortunately the monster grabbed the ends of both sides of the walk way, pulling even more of the structure down with it.

 

With the ground disappearing under their feet neither hedgehog had much of a choice but to join the monster on the lower floor. Shadow flipped mid-air and managed to land securely on his feet. He couldn't even feel his earlier pains in the new rush of adrenaline. He also noted happily that Sonic hit head first into one of the standing planes, if Chaos had been on his side he would have cheered.

 

For a second Chaos looked between the two hedgehogs, deciding ultimately that Sonic made a much better target of opportunity, dazed as the blue hedgehog was. The monster turned towards its victim, leaving its back exposed and Shadow couldn't resist the invitation. Before the creature could even raise a limb to strike at Sonic, who was already scrambling to his legs for a retreat, the black hedgehog had spindashed the monster right into the back of its head. Shadow had pulled what chaos energy he could from the emerald but the creatures new form was more powerful. Instead of blasting straight through its head, as he'd hoped to do, he just bounced off the water. The most his attack seemed to accomplish was forcing the creature to stagger forward a step.

 

“Doesn't work, Shads.” Sonic said, appearing in a blur beside the darker hedgehog as he pulled out of his spindash and landed on his feet again.

 

“No shit?” Shadow growled, he could see perfectly well that his glorious idea of amplifying physical blows with chaos energy wasn't going to cut it anymore. Those Chaos Emeralds the monster had absorbed were protecting it as much as they were making it stronger, if there was just some way to get the emeralds out... Of course there in lay the problem. To get them out, they'd have to go through the water, water that was now too tough to cut through with their spines.

 

Sparks drew Shadow's attention to the collapsed catwalk. The falling structure had pulled with it part of the metal wall revealing the many electric wires and cables underneath, some of which were sparking dangerously.

 

Shadow could be a very vengeful hedgehog.

 

“Keep it busy!” He ordered before dashing around to the rooms wall and ignoring Sonic's cry of “WHAT!?”

 

Chaos automatically turned to follow the streak of red and black, but was soon pre-occupied by a face full of spinning quills. Just like Shadow, Sonic was bounced back from his spindash, unlike Shadow he was now left to deal with a very angry water monster swiping at him with hands that had claws as big as he was. In the meantime Shadow stuck to the wall choosing to run the long way around and behind Chaos just to be safe. Using the rubble of the collapsed catwalk as a series of stepping stones he was soon at the section of the peeled-away wall. Carefully he took secure hold of the largest severed power cable he could spot, making sure that no way in hell could his hands slip from the protective rubber outside and keeping the severed end aimed away from him.

 

Sonic by then seemed to have picked up on the general idea as he tried to maneuver Chaos back and closer to the wall. Slipping underneath the monster's legs he dashed for the rubble, Chaos following after with outstretched limbs. Shadow gave a shout of warning, but already the arms had stretched and elongated. One crashed into the rubble at his feet, while the other caught Sonic full in the back throwing him to the ground in a slide that left a bloody smear behind.

 

Shadow avoided falling into the re-collapsing rubbled by jumping and standing within the hole in the wall. From his vantage point he could see Chaos pause for a second, as if it couldn't believe it actually managed to strike Sonic so easily. The blue hedgehog was using some very choice words as he tried to regain his feet that had Shadow grinning, not everyday a person got to hear mister righteous cuss like a sailor turned drunk truck driver. As Sonic stood Shadow could see that although the other hedgehog's back had been gashed up pretty bad, it hadn't been anything close to a killing blow.

 

But crippling and bleeding excessively it was, and Chaos could see that too. The creature walked forward with one limb outstretched, probably to finish the job, and in a few steps made it into Shadow's range. The black hedgehog leaped from his perch, landing solidly on the monster's hunched back and plunging the electric cable deep into the watery form.

 

Thirty seconds later he concluded that his idea should've been thought through better as he once again was recovering from another exceptionally unpleasant electric jolt. This one had literally catapulted him off of chaos with its force, for which he was ultimately glad. The sounds chaos was making made it quite clear that prolonged exposure to that level of electricity rated pretty high on the unpleasantness scale. He was still gazing dazedly upwards when the monster's shrieks ceased with a loud wet thud. A short while later Sonic hobbled into his view.

 

“And they call me crazy? Congratulations Shadow, I have yet to accomplish electrocuting myself right through my enemies own WATER body. You win the genius award of the year.”

 

“Shut up, don't see you doing any better.” Shadow growled getting to his feet slowly and delicately. He was still dazed and moving too fast was disorienting to say the least. Every muscle in his body ached, his hands and feet hurt like hell from electric burns, the cuts on his head had reopened, and he was having the hardest time keeping his breathing regular as it wanted to jump and flicker with the strange beats his heart was making.

 

“Yeah? Well I don't look like I just got rolled along on a particularly woolly carpet.” Sonic snided back and Shadow looked down to see that indeed his fur was all on end, he was sure if he'd had something rubbery on hand it would have oriented towards it. Shadow would've made a snarky retaliatory comment about dieing his fur unhealthy colors like Sonic was doing. Much to his dismay though, he was cut off by a bubbling growl.

 

Both hedgehogs turned to see Chaos' body first twitch, then slowly stand back to its feet. For a second everybody just observed the situation, none of the fighters had come through the event without serious harm. And then Chaos raised its arms up with an enraged roar, obviously not nearly as bad off or close to defeated as Shadow and Sonic had thought.

 

“Shit.” Sonic commented dryly.

 

“No. Fuck.” Shadow corrected in the same deadpan tone.

 

Chaos grabbed the closest thing at hand, one of the small planes and ironically the same plane Sonic had bumped heads with earlier, and tossed the whole thing at the two hedgehogs, neither of which were up for quick dash escapes. That sure didn't stop them from trying though, and they might really have made it if the open bay doors hadn't been cutting off any escape routes. Luckily the plane landed short of squishing the two who had retreated as close to the open doors as they could get without being sucked out by the wind pressure. Unfortunately the plane chose to explode on impact, the shock wave of the explosion sending both Sonic and Shadow free-falling out of the Egg Carrier into the blue skies beyond.

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Published on: July 09, 2007

Updated On: September 25, 2007