The Eye of Doom - NetRaptor - Sonic the Hedgehog (2024)

Chapter 1: Divide by one

Chapter Text

The red lights flashed on and off. On and off, like a migraine. Maria and I sprinted along the corridor, gasping for breath and looking over our shoulders. Behind us rang gunshots, screams and shouts, but we were almost there.

I was surprised that Maria could keep up so well without my support. Through my terror I exulted in the knowledge that at last she was recovering. She could run! She could breathe! And we would both survive this. After all, Maria had her Shadow with her.

We had drilled escape procedures many times on the ARK. In case of emergency, all personnel were to meet at the shuttle bay and jettison to the planet below. But the hallways had never seemed this long.

We saw a crumpled body on the floor ahead of us. As we approached it, Maria gasped and covered her mouth. It was Madrid, one of the station managers. He had been shot twice and had not been dead long. "Don't look," I told Maria, guiding her around the corpse.

We ran on, but my fear tripled. The soldiers were killing everyone! Why? What was our crime? Would they try to kill Maria and me? Maybe not Maria, but I bet there was a bullet somewhere with my name on it. I am the Ultimate Lifeform, and if the scientists were being killed because they lived on the ARK, then I must be a primary target.

We kept running.

The blinding white lights of the shuttle bay winked into view up the hall. We put on an extra burst of speed and a few seconds later we skidded into the last haven on the ARK.

Rogers and Calvin were already there, two lab techs whom I had known since I was born. "Shadow! Maria!" Calvin yelled, beckoning furiously. He and Rogers manned the escape pod controls, and calibrated one of the last remaining pods. "Get in," said Calvin, pointing to the open door.

Gunshots crackled from up the red-lit hall that Maria and I had run down. We all ducked, and Maria looked at me imploringly. "I won't let them near," I promised her. I sprang through the doorway and stood in the hall, watching the distant bend for enemies. If I was a prime target, then surely I could draw them off and-

"Shadow!" Maria shrieked.

I spun around in time to see five guards dash into the shuttle bay. One of them thumbed the doorlocks, and a sheet of metal slammed shut in my face. They had locked me out in the hall.

Then I heard muffled gunshots.

I broke into a wild skating flight up an adjoining hall. The main shuttle bay entrance could only be closed from the central control room, and I could get in that way. Beyond that were no thoughts at all. Only stark black terror. I couldn't think about what those gunshots meant. I just had to get there.

A voice in my head whispered, "You're not fast enough." I moved even faster, inching up to sixty or seventy miles an hour, extremely dangerous for indoors, but it wasn't fast enough.

I turned a corner, rebounded off the wall with both flaming skates, and skidded back into the white light of the hanger.

Rogers and Calvin lay beside the pod console, shot where they stood. And Maria-

I screamed in utter anguish as my heart broke. She lay facedown on the floor, her white gown stained scarlet.

Standing over her with a pistol pointed at her head was a black mechanical hedgehog. He laughed as our eyes met. "Hello Shadow," he whispered in my mind. "We be of one blood, ye and I."

"Stop it!" I screamed, running forward. I wanted to tear him limb from limb, stomp him into scrap, beat those electronic red eyes into fragments. But before I reached him, he pulled the trigger. Once. Twice. Three times.

"Mekion!" I cried, and woke up.

I was curled in a tight ball, and I had clenched my teeth so hard that my jaw ached. I forced myself to relax and uncurl. I was shaking. I sat up, put my feet on the floor, and allowed myself two deep, reactionary gasps that were almost sobs. Then I made myself breathe deeply until I calmed down. "Mekion," I thought to the creature who had invaded my mind, "I am going to destroy you."

"But we are one," Mekion replied in his voice that wasn't really a voice. "Destruction of one implies destruction of the other."

I grasped my head in both hands and sat like that; my left hand, which was made of metal, holding the metal side of my face, and my flesh and blood right hand holding the living half of my face. The divide between robot and living seemed even sharper than usual. Warm versus cold, compassion versus oblivion ...

I was still sitting there when my roommate Nick emerged from the bathroom, fresh from a shower and ready for work. He stopped and looked at me. "You okay, Shadow?"

I nodded. "I need to get out of here."

He shrugged. "If you need to go, then go. Just don't let GUN see you."

I smirked, the right side of my face smiling while the left side remained immobile. A few months earlier, some of my enemies had conspired to try to isolate the source of my immortality. All that had happened was that Mekion had been badly damaged and is now insane. Nick was the recipient of enough chaos power to kill him, but the experiment actually worked, and he survived. Being human, this wasn't supposed to happen. He lived in fear that someone, mainly GUN, might discover what had happened to him and take him in for testing. Lethal testing.

"I won't give you away, Nick. But really, I have to get out of here." I jumped up, strode to the window and stood looking out across Sapphire City to the sea. "Mekion is getting worse," I murmured.

Nick was silent, and I heard him picking up his bag with his equipment in it. "I need to go," he told me. He walked to the door, but didn't open it. I turned my head and saw him fumbling with his wallet. He removed a card and held it out to me. I took it. Mecha's debit card. I had loaned it to Nick so he could buy food and supplies for us when I had moved in. His returning it meant that I was free to leave. I silently shook his hand, and he left without a word, never making eye contact. Was he sorry to see me go? Me, the monster cyborg hedgehog? Not likely.

I turned and looked around the apartment. I had precious little that I could call my own. My tattered black backpack lay in a corner, unzipped, with Nox asleep inside of it.

Odd. Nox always slept with me. I crossed the room and knelt beside the backpack. Nox opened his eyes and blinked sleepily up at me. He's a black chao with deep orange stripes along his hedgehog-like spines. He's belonged to me since Dr. Robotnik freed me from cryogenic freeze. Even when I forgot him, or turned on him, he has remained my loyal friend.

"What are you doing in there?" I asked.

Nox climbed out of the backpack and sat rubbing his eyes with his round paws. "You were having nightmares," he said. "You kept thrashing around, and I swear that Mekion was trying to claw me. So I moved over here."

"Sorry," I said, stroking his head with my natural hand. "I think it's time to leave."

Nox looked at me, his white pupils suddenly piercing. I knew that he was sorting through my feelings. Nox is a sympath, and sometimes it's creepy, but I don't mind. There are times when even I don't know what I'm feeling, and Nox helps me sort myself out.

Now he nodded, as if finding something that did not surprise him. "You've been restless for days," he said. "I wondered if it was time to go. Ever since we got that newspaper."

That newspaper was currently spread across the kitchen table. Mekion and I had read it over and over. I could close my eyes and see the type. "Festival of the Black Comet! The Black Comet returns to orbit the sun once every fifty years, and this year its trajectory takes it within seven hundred thousand miles of Mobius. Viewing will be spectacular. The Black Comet is so named because it has a tail millions of miles long, but reflects no light ..." And so on and so forth.

I had a copy saved to Mekion's database for future reading. Why? I don't know. It filled me with a foreboding anticipation, like waiting for the detonation of an atomic bomb. I was excited and terrified, and for days I had felt a growing need to get out of the apartment and run. Just run. Anywhere but here. Why? I don't know. But the time had come.

I raided Nick's cupboards for the meal rations he had bought me, and stuffed my backpack with them. I tucked Mecha's debit card in a side pocket, and pulled out my golden Chaos Emerald. My transport, my healing crystal, the source of my power. I rubbed it against my fur to polish it, then stooped and handed it to Nox. He took it in both paws, and looked at me with shining eyes. "You mean it?" he breathed. I nodded.

Nox opened his mouth and sank his little teeth into the Chaos Emerald. Instantly its power engulfed him, stretched him out, and rebuilt him into a long-legged bird. Something like an ostrich, but without the naked neck-he wore sleek black feathers, culminating in a plume of gold feathers on his head, and long gleaming tailfeathers. The Chaos Emerald glowed from inside his mouth as he spoke. A chao's power was to transform when in possession of a Chaos Emerald, and they could not eat or drink in that form. Thus their transformations were limited.

"Oh boy, I love this," he exclaimed, strutting in a circle. "Let's go run! Please please?"

In reply, I grasped his neck with my living hand. I felt the chaos power pulsing just under his feathers, as if he were a living emerald. "Chaos relocate," I said.

In a flash we vanished from the apartment and reappeared on top of a grassy hill outside of Sapphire City. "Now run," I said, and bolted eastward. Nox gave a trill of joy and ran after me on his long legs.

I am perfection embodied.

I am my own morality. I see my surroundings for what they truly are. No one has a claim to my attention or perfection, for I am perfect.

But there are those who would spoil perfection, trample it into the dust of mediocrity. Never mind that I alone behold the world as it is, unshackled by restraints or moral boundaries. There are those who would destroy me.

Shadow would destroy me. I am perfection and he is my one blemish. If I could remove him, I would be faultless, pure as diamond. He is a craven, groping creature, pleading that I leave him shackled by his pathetic moral code. He does not wish for me to destroy the ones whom I despise, those who would destroy me. It makes sense for the created to destroy the creator, then take his place. I am perfection, therefore I should be Master.

But Shadow must fall first. He stands in my way to utter control-he, too, desires control. We share the same body, and both of us wish to dominate the other. I have set all of my processing power to work, mapping his neuron network. I have traced several paths already, but his subconscious is deep and vast, a labyrinth of electrical connections and chemical balances.

He does not know that the Eye of Doom is upon us. I have beheld it. I fear not, for I am perfection. I am all I am.

I am Mekion.

Mekion, my enemy, made me halt at sundown.

Nox and I had run all day long. From Sapphire City we followed the road east, past several small Mobian towns whose names I didn't catch, and up into the mountains, taking the road to Ironhedge. Why there, I didn't know. I had never set foot in Ironhedge, and only knew what Mecha had told me, how it was a penal colony for Mobians and humans alike. All I knew was that I wanted to hide.

But as the sun set, Mekion began to drag at me. My robot leg refused to take long strides, and my mechanical eye wandered, cutting my vision and making me dizzy.

"Mekion," I asked him inside my head, "what are you doing?"

"We must halt here," he replied to my mind. "It is June second."

"What's that got to do with anything?" I snapped. I hate it when he forces me to do things. I tried to make my legs walk forward, but Mekion refused to let my mechanical leg move. I stood in the road, feeling like an idiot.

Nox stopped beside me, beak open and panting. "What's wrong?"

"Mekion," I told him with a snarl. I slapped the metal side of my head. "If a car comes, we'll be history."

"There will be no cars tonight," Mekion told me. He displayed a map on the inside of my mechanical eye, showing the entire region in green and blue. There were a few cars several miles away, but none traveling in our direction.

Unbidden, my mechanical arm moved. It extended and pointed up into the darkening blue sky, where a few stars twinkled. I followed its direction with my eyes. Dim in the sunset hung a hazy star with a fading tail. The comet.

Something clicked. Over the last month and a half, Mekion had made me sleep walk. I've awakened in all kinds of crazy places, usually on the roof of a building, always staring at the sky. And now at last I understood. Mekion was watching that comet. So why was I, Shadow, so afraid of it? What did my subconscious know that my waking mind did not? I gazed up at the comet with both eyes. A tail with an empty center. No heart. Like Mekion.

Beside me, Nox gave a shrill gasp and shrank close to me, his warm feathers pressing against my shoulder. Mekion's vision wavered and blurred with static, and I felt a surge of energy roll over me, like electricity. The street ten feet away shimmered and blurred in an oval. Out of this anomaly came the Eye.

It might have been a starfish or a squid, but it was bigger than I was, and swam through the air like a squid through water. In its center, facing forward, was a single red eye. Instead of one pupil in the center, it had a line of black pinpricks.

It was so hideously alien that I wanted to run, to scream, to teleport as far away as I could. But my tongue stuck to the roof of my mouth. I gripped Nox's feathers with my living hand and stared at my reflection in that terrible Eye. It regarded me without moving, like a camera with a fixed lens.

The distortion wavered and shimmered behind it, and another creature emerged through it. This one looked slightly less alien, and at the same time even more so. It had a head and two arms, but if it had legs, I couldn't see them. This being wore a long robe-like thing that parted into fluttering strips a foot from the ground. There were no feet under them. It floated up beside the Eye-squid. I lifted my head to look at its face. Its head was triangular, with black leathery skin, and two horns or ears sticking out of the sides. It had three red eyes with no pupils, but they glittered and shimmered, so I guessed that they were compound.

"Greetings, Shadow," said the newcomer. It had no mouth that I could see, but I heard its voice distinctly. Deep, masculine, harsh, angry. It was one of the voices that Mekion had been transmitting for weeks! I thought I had been losing my mind. The realization that I had been hearing aliens was no better.

I swallowed and said, "How do you know my name?"

"I am Black Doom," said the alien. "We had an agreement, Shadow. Why have you not brought the seven Chaos Emeralds?"

Chapter 2: Countermove

Chapter Text

"What agreement?" my mind screamed. "Chaos Emeralds? Mekion, what's he talking about?"

Mekion sounded smug. "Are you deaf as well as blind, Shadow? I have been in contact with Doom's Eye for two weeks now."

I forced a smile at the two aliens. Or one alien. The Eye and the one called Black Doom were linked, somehow. When one moved, the other moved.

"I'm sorry," I said through my teeth. "My counterpart forgot to mention that."

Black Doom leaned forward, and the Eye waved its tentacles and glided up within a foot of me. It examined me closely, and I could see the veins and fibers in its iris. It was too close, and I could smell a repulsive fishy odor from it. I barely kept from cringing. Nox stood stock-still beside me, crest flat to his head, but his eyes burned. Nox was angry? It gave me courage.

"What has Dr. Gerald done to you?" said Black Doom. "You have been mutilated, Shadow." This gave him pause. The Eye withdrew, its tentacles fluttering lazily, and Doom and his Eye studied me.

I wondered what a half-metal spindash would do to the Eye. "How do you know about Gerald?" I asked.

Black Doom lifted a hand. It had three fingers with a claw at the end of each. A predator's hand. "Our agreement was that you must bring me all seven Chaos Emeralds, Shadow. The ritual must proceed as planned. I will grant you three more rotations of your planet."

There was something in his voice that I didn't like. I rested a hand on Nox's back. "I have one already."

Neither alien blinked and I wondered if they even had eyelids. "Seven, Shadow," said Black Doom. He raised a hand to his chest, and I realized that he was wearing enough necklaces and jewelry to sink a ship. He pulled one of these off his neck and held it out to me. I took it, and hastily transferred it to my mechanical hand. The necklace was burning hot. I felt the heat radiating off Doom's hand, and backed away.

Doom withdrew. "Wear it," he commanded.

My arms moved, and helplessly, through no will of my own (but probably Mekion's), I put the chain around my neck. Hanging from it was a silver pendant like a crescent moon with a single spike through it.

"My Eye will watch you," Doom said. "The instrument will mark you as one of us. It will summon my Eye. Find the seven Chaos Emeralds, Shadow, or I will be displeased."

Both aliens vanished through the portal, the Eye floating backwards, watching me until it was gone.

Shadow has at last met Black Doom and the Eye. He is terrified, yes, but he is easy to cow. He is running now, his terror overwhelming. But I am working to balance the chemicals in his brain ... bit by bit I am cutting down his fear. Simple animal.

"Mekion," comes his thought through the neuro-link. "Who is Doom? How do you know about him?"

Information is power. It is one of the fabulous holds I have on him. He cannot know anything except what I want him to know. If I fed him falsehood, he would believe it, but why bother with lies when withholding truth is just as effective?

"Doom is our true master," I tell him. "I know about him because I know all."

"Shut up, Mekion," he snarls. "You think you know everything, but you don't remember the ARK and Gerald and Maria."

"I know them more intimately than you do, Shadow," I whisper. "I know everything that you do and more."

He is silent now, troubled. We have stopped running. We sit beside the road, hidden by tall, rustling grass, and Nox sits beside us in bird form, his legs bent under him. Presently a query comes from Shadow to open the transmission program. I block the query with an access prompt. He curses me out loud. "Open it, Mekion."

"Access denied," I tell him. "No calls to the enemy at this time."

"Mecha's not the enemy!" He calls me many foul things until he runs out of insults and falls silent. I gloat. There is nothing he can do.

I raise my robot hand and stroke Doom's pendant. Shadow watches and says nothing.

Mekion was certainly pleased with himself and his piece of alien bling. I turned my living eye away from my robot hand-my robot eye remained fixed on the necklace-and looked at Nox. He sat beside me, watching me and occasionally looking up at the comet in the starry sky.

"Well Nox?" I said. "What was Black Doom inside?"

"All fire and lava," said Nox. "Black Doom has a soul, I think, but no mind. And the Eye has a mind and no soul."

Like Mekion.

"So which one did I actually talk to?" I asked.

Nox looked at me. "I didn't know they talked to you. What did they say?"

I wrenched Mekion's eye around so I could stare at Nox. "What?"

"I didn't hear anything," said Nox. "Maybe they're telepathic. I thought it was weird that neither of them had mouths."

"Uh ... did I talk back to them?" I asked, feeling uneasy.

"Nope," said Nox. "Maybe they read minds."

I didn't like the thought of that. Had Doom heard my thought about spindashing the Eye? I didn't want to come off as hostile to some new alien race. Who somehow knew all about me. It gave me the creeps. Why would some bunch of aliens want all the Chaos Emeralds? As far as I knew, the emeralds were tied to Mobius. Although if someone took all seven to another planet, it might just cause the planetary chaos field to collapse ... I didn't want to think about that.

Briefly I recapped my conversation with Doom to Nox, who listened carefully. It irritated me that Black Doom had answered none of my questions. He acted like I already knew everything. Three days to retrieve all the emeralds. Ha, like that was possible. I didn't even know where they were.

"Mekion," I said, "do we know the locations of any Chaos Emeralds?"

"Affirmative," Mekion whispered in my left ear. He displayed five rapidfire images in my inner screen. Sonic holding the green emerald. Myself with the orange. A silver dragon with the white. Rouge the Bat with the red. Last of all, Mecha Sonic gazing intently at the violet. The dark and light blue were unknown at this time.

I felt my stomach twist. In order to collect the emeralds, I had to rob friends and allies. Would they give me the emeralds freely? The very idea made me laugh. "Give me your emeralds so I can give them to some alien dude named Doom." Yeah, right.

Nox watched me. "Don't trust Doom, Shadow. He's evil."

"Yeah, screw him," I said. "I wish I knew why he's so interested in me." I also wished that there was somebody else who I could talk to about Doom. Like Mecha. I queried Mekion again for a transmission, and again be blocked me. Stupid freaking computer. I stood up and stretched, and Nox followed suit.

"Think the cybercafe is open?" I asked.

Nox shrugged a wing. "They're open until midnight. What time is it?"

"After ten," I said. I knew the exact time because of Mekion. I laid my living hand on Nox's warm neck and pictured the front door of the cafe. Holding the image in my mind's eye, I said, "Chaos relocate." And there we were.

The street was noisy and bright with traffic, and the cafe was cool and dark by comparison. Many of the computers were in use, but my favorite one in the corner was free. I swiped my debit card at the counter, and the nerdy human gave Nox and me odd looks, but said nothing. Just as well, since GUN has a price on my head. But they've never released my information to the public, because it's too embarrassing to admit that they let a hedgehog escape from a top-security prison. Who went on to help save the world, I might add. There's mucky-mucks at the top who want me dead, but I don't care.

All I cared about was contacting Mecha.

I had to resort to email, which was interesting, because Mekion refused to let my left hand type. So I typed out a letter one-handed. When I finished it sounded like a telegram. I heard Nox snicker from where he was reading over my shoulder.

"Mecha. Need to talk. I was contacted by an alien called Black Doom. Involves Chaos Emeralds. Mekion being a pain. Send email, Mekion blocking transmissions. Shadow."

I sent it, not to an email address, but to an IP number. The program grumbled at me but sent it anyway.

I rose from the table and led Nox outside. "Where to?" he asked.

I shrugged. "Somewhere we can sleep for a while?"

He co*cked his head at me and parted his beak in a smile. "I know where we can go." I touched his neck, and he teleported us himself.

Long ago, shortly after Dr. Robotnik released me from cryogenic freeze, I had hidden from GUN in a chao garden. It was a pleasant park-like place, full of trees and flowers, arranged like a miniature playground for the little chao. That was where Nox met and bonded with me, even though at the time I had no use for him.

Nox took us there. At night the garden was empty, the chao all indoors asleep. Nox and I curled up in the grass in a far corner, behind some bushes. Nox spat out his emerald and put it in my pack to hide the glow, and curled up against the white fur on my chest. I held him and lay still, gazing across the dim grass for a while. Doom was out there somewhere. So was Mecha. I wondered if he had received my message yet, and what he thought of it ...

Shadow is asleep. I prefer him that way. I slowly lift our head and extend my control into the biological nerves and muscles. I flex Shadow's living hand and leg, and edge away from Nox. He is worn out and does not awaken.

I rise to my feet and walk stiffly out into the middle of the garden. Shadow's eye remains closed. He is very tired, and will not rouse unless I force him into strenuous activity. I have no plans to do so.

I raise my head and scan the sky until I locate the Black Comet. My Master's ship. I have been in contact with it for nearly a month, but two-way communication was sparse until the ship drew into parallel orbit with Mobius.

I cup the moon-necklace in both hands. It grows warm and shines with a cold blue light. "Send me the Eye," I whisper aloud to it.

At once the air surges with electricity that makes my systems uncomfortably unstable. It ceases, and the Eye floats leisurely out of the portal. Its red iris is faintly luminous, like a banked fire that emits heat but little light. It regards me without expression.

I bow Shadow's body to the ground before it. "Master," I say. "My greatest enemy has been contacted without my consent. Please begin the invasion."

Black Doom's voice resonates through the aural center of Shadow's brain. "The invasion will begin when it begins. You will have sufficient warning to flee-or participate."

"Mecha has the power to destroy me, Master," I say, rising to my feet. "Once Shadow informs him of what has happened, Mecha will stop at nothing."

The Eye tilts slightly to one side. Doom's voice is amused. "We must not allow that, must we?"

The Eye extends one thick black tentacle and wraps it around my head. Its heat is overwhelming, and I feel how strong it is. It could crush our skull like an eggshell. But that is not its intent. Some sort of software, a security algorithm, is uploaded to my databanks. I encode it and save it, byte by byte. A second later the Eye releases me from its deadly embrace, and I feel blisters rise on Shadow's face.

"That will protect you," says Doom. "Anyone trying to alter your programming will find their tools broken."

I bow before the Eye once more. It withdraws, backwards, watching me until the last, and vanishes into the portal.

I return to Nox and lie down as the algorithm chews through my programming like a writhing maggot. It is making me stronger.

I awakened at dawn to the sensation of someone shaking me. I opened my eyes and looked up into a familiar, welcome face. Blue metal. Silver muzzle. Red eyes. "Mecha?" I said in disbelief, sitting up.

"Hush," he said softly, kneeling beside me. "I do not know why you chose a chao garden for cover, but there are people about, and we are here illegally."

"Oh," I said, yawning. "I'll warp us out." As my face stretched, my skin felt weird and numb. I touched my face with my real hand and felt the soft lumps of water blisters. What in the ...?

Nox already had the orange emerald out of my pack, and pushed it into my hand. "The other chao have already seen us," he said. "I know some of them. I made them swear not to tell on us."

I stood up, picked up Nox and laid a hand on Mecha's shoulder. "Chaos relocate." We reappeared on the same grassy hill outside the city that I had teleported to once before.

I went to set Nox down, and with a sick shock found that Mekion had clenched his claws into Mecha's shoulder, digging under the shoulder plate into the joint beneath. Mecha seized Mekion's fingers and wrenched some of them free, and I tore the rest loose with my living hand. I looked at Mekion's claws and saw that they were covered in Mecha's sticky silver nanite blood. I stooped and wiped it on the grass. "Mecha, I'm so sorry, I forgot-"

"No harm done," he said through his teeth. He rotated his shoulder, and the holes in his metal closed and sealed over as his biometal repaired itself. As I looked at him, it dawned on me that something was wrong. His eyes flickered orange from time to time, as if his visual sensors were damaged. His left leg had a strange, jagged black line from knee to ankle, and there was a symbol I had never seen before engraved on his right wrist. He carried a tattered backpack on his back. A black stone hung from a chain around his neck. A brief scan confirmed my suspicion. "Mecha, where's Aleda?"

He gave me a bland look, and his left hand rose and covered the symbol on his right wrist. "Safe," he said. "I was passing through the area when I recieved your message. You said you were contacted by Black Doom?"

There was something odd in the way he spoke that alarmed me. I pretended not to notice. "Yeah, Black Doom. Do you know him?"

"I know of him," said Mecha, looking out at the awakening city. "He has been in contact with various political leaders, threatening war and making demands that no free being on Mobius would ever submit to." He looked at me inquiringly.

"He wants me to bring him the Chaos Emeralds," I said. "He said we have an agreement."

Mecha gazed at me for a moment, and it was only because I knew him well that I saw the startled flicker in his eyes. "An agreement." He looked at the sky above the city. "Did Mekion make it?"

"I don't know," I said, touching the blisters on my face again. There were more on the side of my head, under my ear ... like my head had been submerged in boiling water. I frowned. "I'll bet he did, though."

Mecha turned and looked at me. "I had better have another look at his software. I cannot imagine what must be going on inside his programming."

Mecha knew all about how Mekion worked, because Mecha was the one who performed the Mecha-Fusion experiment on me in the first place. At first he conditioned me to be his slave-the perfect slave, held in subjection by the artificial intelligence in my robot half. But Mekion and I didn't get along too well. Then Mecha suffered some major setbacks of his own and came to regret everything he had done to me. He had tried to tone down Mekion's control, which had worked for a while ... then Dr. Robotnik hacked Mekion and broke him completely.

I sat down on the ground. Whenever Mecha Sonic worked on Mekion, I felt sick and dizzy, and it was best to lie down before I fell down. "Just stay out of his reach," I said as I stretched out on the grass.

Mecha nodded, and his claws twitched. Something was wrong with him ... I hadn't seen him so unsettled since that confrontation on the Annihilator, when he had taken on Super Sonic and lost. Where was Aleda, anyway?

I closed my eye as he connected to Mekion.

I cannot stop my enemy from logging on. He still possesses the master encryption key, and I can no more block that than I can keep a physical key from being inserted and turned. But my traps are laid. I let him log in. His user shell enters my virtual framework.

I generate the usual menu metaphor-a room with three doors. But the doors have become sheets of metal. He moves to the Admin door and taps the corner, where the access port used to be. But things have changed. His codes no longer function.

Curses! He has moved aside a picture on the wall and reveals a back door that I was not aware of. He climbs through and is behind my first firewall. I lock all other proxies to keep him from opening any other holes. He is in the operating system between programs, and I cannot get a lock on his position. Not enough security measures.

Before I can launch a virus scan, he emerges in the admin center. The hounds are there already. They are a gift from Black Doom, a sub-AI that is beautiful in a twisted way. It devours any user I tell it to. The hounds attack my enemy's user shell, rip it to shreds and consume his data. Then they meld through the walls, seeking more.

My enemy logs in once more, but this time with a passcode built into my matrix. He enters my core, and for a second we stand eye to eye. He commands me to obey. I block him with a wall of prime numbers. The hounds are coming and he knows it. But I have more at my disposal than the hounds.

I activate the alien algorithm in my core. It transforms me into a black beast with five heads and long fangs. I attack and maul his identity, sucking as much information from it as I can. If I can rip the exec code for HIS databanks-

But he is gone, logging off messily and leaving damaged files in his wake. I clean up and retire. I have power. My enemy is defeated.

Mecha moaned and stumbled backwards. I opened my eye and saw him crouching with one hand shielding his face as if warding off a blow. I sat up and put a hand to my head. Mekion was hot to the touch. "What happened?"

Mecha straightened up and shook his head. "Mekion has ... unusual defenses. I cannot remain logged in long enough to accomplish anything." He gazed at me, almost fearful.

I rubbed Mekion's hot paneling. "What did he do?"

"He has acquired new security software," said Mecha. "I have never seen anything like it." His left hand crept up to touch the symbol on his right wrist. He gazed at the symbol a moment, then put his hand down again. "I shall be in touch, Shadow. I must depart now."

I jumped to my feet. "So soon? You can't do anything about Mekion?"

He looked at me, his eyes flickering like dying embers. "No Shadow, not now. I must complete my own journey first. I still believe that you can defeat Mekion yourself."

He turned away, and I watched him, aghast. "Mecha ... I can't even communicate with him!"

He gave me a look over his shoulder. "He is your mind, Shadow. Conquer it."

To my utter astonishment, Mecha disappeared in a flash of chaos energy. He had learned to chaos control? I suddenly had a million questions for him, but he was gone to who knows where.

I turned to Nox. "How did he feel?"

He sat on the grass like a little black stone, gazing at the city in the distance. He looked up as I spoke. "Mecha? Something's wrong with him. He was crying inside the whole time. Then Mekion hurt him, and he panicked."

This bothered me. Something had to have happened to Aleda for Mecha to be so upset. And then Mekion had done ... something. I gave him a mental poke, but felt nothing but heat. He wasn't speaking to me. How could I defeat a hostile corner of my own mind? I feared him and his power.

The half-moon pendant around my neck suddenly became hot. I flinched and stooped forward, so it swung away from my chest. At the same time I sensed that the morning sunlight had altered.

Nox jumped to his feet, pointing. "Shadow! Look at that!"

I looked up and felt all of my fur stand on end.

A spiral of black cloud had appeared over the city's center, stretching like a tube up into the atmosphere. Its center opened just above the tops of the tallest buildings, and black specks dropped out of it.

As this happened, I saw the air around a skyscraper shimmer and reflect motes of white light-then a beam of retina-searing light blasted the building, vaporizing everything but the steel support structure. When the beam vanished, the building's skeleton teetered, then folded in on itself and collapsed.

I could not grasp the magnitude or the speed of the destruction that I had just witnessed. An orbital strike laser with accuracy within millimeters ... and hundreds of innocent lives ended instantly.

Without any idea of what I intended to do, I seized Nox and my Chaos Emerald, and teleported into the bedlam.

Chapter 3: Invasion

Chapter Text

And bedlam it was.

The black specks dropping out of the tunnel of cloud were actually giant monsters. They descended slowly, floating with some kind of anti-gravity devices around their waists, then hit the ground and attacked anything they saw.

I stood like an idiot in the middle of the road, staring at one of the things. It was eighteen feet tall, with two arms, two legs, a tiny head with insect-like globular eyes, and a hundred gleaming spikes growing out of its shoulders. I watched as it swung a fist and knocked a car twenty feet in the air. The car flew across the road and exploded against a wall in a ball of flame.

The pendant burned against my chest. The alien turned and looked at me, then lumbered forward, fists drawn back. I guess that wearing the pendant didn't necessarily mean that I was on their side.

I darted to the left like lightning, around the thick arms, and hurled myself into a killing spindash. I struck its chest and bounced off. The beast bellowed in pain. I landed on my feet and spun to see the damage-and saw that orange lava was oozing from the wound. It melted the pavement where it dripped.

The maddened alien charged at me again, and this time I ran. Behind me the alien smashed everything within reach, roaring and smoking.

I handed my emerald to Nox, who immediately transformed into his lanky bird-form. It was dangerous out here for a chao, and as a bird he could defend himself, at least. "So," I asked him as he ran along beside me, "what was that alien like inside?"

He glanced behind us. "All hate and fire. There was a soul, though. Not like Doom."

We turned a corner and came upon a wall of overturned cars. GUN soldiers sheltered behind them and fired through chinks in the metal. I ran to the edge of the blockade and saw that beyond it lay half a dozen dead aliens, all of them only five feet tall, but clutching deadly-looking handguns. One of the giants lay dead as well, cooling lava cementing it to the pavement.

The humans looked at me, and I looked at them. GUN: my enemies. But for now, we were allies. "What's happening?" I asked.

They looked at each other. They knew who I was. I snorted. "I'm fighting the aliens, too! Now, why are they attacking?"

The nearest soldier eyed Nox at my side. "They want the Chaos Emeralds."

I was saved from further obvious statements by a familiar voice yelling, "Shadow!"

I turned to see Sonic running toward the blockade, jumping shattered cars and other debris. His blue was refreshing to the eye against the red and orange of the flames all around. He flashed some kind of ID card at the soldiers, who saluted to him. Then he turned to me. "Fighting the Black Arms too, huh? Cool! C'mon, they're hitting downtown really hard."

He spun and dashed off the way he had come. I shrugged at Nox and followed. Sonic would give me answers, just because he never knew when to shut up. "What's going on?" I asked him as I settled into my skating rhythm.

"The aliens are the Black Arms," said Sonic, obviously assuming that I had been living in a cave for the last six months. "They showed up about three weeks ago, demanding that Mobius surrender and hand over the Chaos Emeralds. Everybody's been negotiating with them. They think Mobius is populated by parasites that are consuming the planet's resources or something like that."

We turned a corner and plunged unexpectedly into a firefight.

The small humanoid aliens swarmed around an abandoned building that they had captured, and the humans were busy lobbing grenades through the windows. Bazooka shells and rockets flew like rain. The aliens had plasma weapons similar to Mobian ones, but while Mobian plasma weapons fire narrow bolts that kill the target instantly, the alien ones fire a blob of molten fire that splashes all over the place and causes a lot of pain but not necessarily death. I saw this first-hand as a hot pink ball of plasma struck a nearby soldier's riot shield and melted it into a smoking lump.

"I want one of those," I said in a lull when everyone was reloading.

"What, a shield?" said Sonic.

"No," I breathed. "An alien plasma pistol."

I dodged around the humans, crouching low in a rapid skating glide, and leaped through a window into the alien nest. I landed on two of the small ones, who were crouched under the window, and knocked them flat. They flailed and grabbed at me with their scorching hot hands, but I kicked them in the heads, snatched up their pistols in both hands, and realized that they had no triggers. Boiling plasma and no way to fire it!

That was when I looked up and realized that I was in the crosshairs of twenty-five angry aliens.

Mekion laughed. My robot eye cycled to a green overlay with red targeting reticles around each alien's weapon. Before I could think, my body sprang forward and coiled into a spindash. I struck one pistol, shattering and spraying its owner with the contents of the plasma cartridge. Then I ...

Control seized from Shadow. Black Doom is too trusting. All targets firing but plasma travels through air fifteen percent slower than I do. Combat mode engaged, targets one, two, three, four destroyed, rebound, target acquired, targets five through twelve destroyed ...

I came to as I bounded out of the building with my fur smoking. My nose was filled with the fishy alien reek and the acrid smell of plasma. I still carried the two pistols.

Sonic and the soldiers goggled at me. I tossed a pistol to Sonic. "Figure out how this works, will you?"

Sonic looked at the weapon as if it were a scorpion and passed it to a nearby soldier. Two others huddled around him to look. I examined my own, keeping it aimed at the side of a building. Nox stood at a distance, behind the blockade, looking forlorn. I ignored him for the moment and turned the pistol over and over. It was smooth and molded to fit the aliens' three-fingered hands. It was made out of some sort of plasti-steel, neither warm nor cold, and a thin purple light ran the length of the barrel. I ran my fingers all over it, hoping to feel a button of some sort. Mekion's eye zoomed in on a flat square on the paneling midway up the barrel. I pressed it, and plasma splashed against the wall, leaving a smouldering crater.

"Pressure plate," I called to the soldiers.

"Good for you," said Sonic, stepping forward. "Since you're so good at taking down these aliens, let's head to the next checkpoint. Aliens are swarming down on Sunset and Maple."

A chill ran through my body, following the long line where my flesh became metal. Sunset Drive was where Nick lived. I broke into a skating run at once, and Sonic and Nox followed me. "They knew Sapphire City was a target," Sonic said behind me. "They've been evacuating since last night, and so far civilian losses have been low. But they haven't evacuated the east side yet, and that's where the aliens are headed."

My frantic pace slowed a fraction. So Nick was probably safe. But these aliens had to die. I thought of Doom and the Eye, and wondered what they'd do if they knew that I was fighting against them. Then with a jolt I wondered why Mekion had attacked the aliens. Wasn't he in cahoots with Doom and company? Whose side was he on, anyway? I asked him this and received no reply, as usual.

Up ahead, the sky was black with smoke, and I tasted the bitterness of burning metal in the back of my throat. Sonic and I heard sirens and gunshots, and I gripped my pistol a little tighter.

We rounded a corner and charged into a row of aliens who were beating the snot out of a platoon of soldiers. I discovered the joy of blasting an alien in the eyes, then spindashing them when they recoiled. Behind me, Sonic did an efficient job of disarming aliens, but he was careful not to kill them. I had no such scruples.

Two minutes later, every alien in the regiment was down. The soldiers gave a weary cheer, and hurried forward to frisk the aliens for weapons. I laughed, brandishing my pistol. "What's the matter, Sonic? Got something against killing the enemy?" Before he could answer, one of the fallen aliens aimed a blow at Sonic's back with a curved blade. I shot it before it could strike, and Sonic just about fell over getting away from it. "The Black Arms are better off dead," I told him.

Without waiting for a reply, I picked up a second pistol and skated off up the road. This city was the closest thing I had to a home, and I intended to defend it.

Two blocks later, I was nearly mowed down by a winged alien the size of a car. It swooped at me and fired some kind of projectile. The missile embedded itself in the pavement and exploded, creating an instant shrapnel bomb. I skated out of range at a couple hundred miles an hour. The winged alien beat its way back up into the air, and I waited for it, pistols held at eye level.

This new alien species looked like a spike-studded manta ray that had learned to fly, but its head resembled a bird's, and it had four or five eyes, like a hunting spider. One of the small aliens (the foot soldiers, I guessed) was riding on its back, clutching a harness that seemed to sprout from the manta-bird's neck.

It wheeled about, and two more projectiles fired from the manta's shoulders. I sprinted out of the way, and fired my plasma pistols as I went. One of the blasts grazed the manta's wing, and it made a high-pitched squeal. It wheeled in a circle, its injured wing flailing, then crashed into the side of a building. It fell to the pavement with a thud, and neither it nor its rider moved.

I heard Nox's footsteps behind me, and I hooked an elbow around his neck. "What's the flying one?" I asked him.

Nox's glittering eyes fixed on the manta-bird, and his crest rose. "It's like a trained animal. Not much soul, just feelings. There's nothing now, though ... I think its dead."

"Good," I said. "Give me the Chaos Emerald, and I'll carry you on my shoulder. No point in spindashing when plasma works so well."

Nox obeyed in silence, spitting out the gold emerald and shrinking back into a chao. I put him on my shoulder and picked up the emerald. One of my pistols was nearly empty, so I threw it aside. My emerald was a better weapon anyway.

I found another squadron of attacking aliens a block away, and experimented with Chaos Spear. Chaos Spear calls down a lightning bolt that toasts whatever it strikes, and I'm pretty good at controlling it. The trouble with using lightning in an urban setting is that the electricity would much rather ground itself through metal objects, like cars and the guns of human soldiers. It was easier to stop time with Chaos Control, and pummel the aliens in zero-time. I swapped my plasma pistol for a better one with two barrels. When Sonic showed up, fighting his way in from the opposite end of the street, I had taken down twenty-eight alien soldiers and two of the giant ones.

We met in the middle of the street. Sonic's spines were singed black on the ends, and his eyes were like chips of jade. "Death's too good for them," he snarled. "Did you see what they did to the humans they'd captured back there?"

"No," I said.

"You don't want to," he assured me. He strode over to the aliens that I had killed and picked up a plasma pistol.

I grinned. "I knew that you'd come to see things my way, Sonic."

"Shadow," Nox whispered in my ear, from where he was sheltered under my spines. But I felt it, too-a surge of static electricity that made my fur prickle. I turned to see a portal ripple into existence, and out of it glided the creepy, tentacled Eye of Doom. It floated toward me with flutters of its arms, as if our atmosphere was thick enough to swim in. I heard Doom's voice. "You disappoint me, Shadow. You are attacking my people. Clearly you are not to be trusted, so my Eye will watch you from now on."

I was aware that Sonic was backing away, pistol trained on this new threat. "Don't shoot," I said out of the corner of my mouth. "He's only here to watch me."

"Watch you?" said Sonic, never taking his eyes off the Eye. "What's it want with you?"

Again the laughably bad explanation ran through my head: collecting all the Chaos Emeralds to give to some guy named Doom. I couldn't tell Sonic that. Besides, I wasn't collecting any Chaos Emeralds.

Without warning, iron bars clamped down on my consciousness. My living arm dropped to my side, and my living knee buckled. Black spots covered my vision, and blind, I sank to the pavement. Mekion. What was he doing? I felt him in my mind, tinkering around, extending his probes into the motion center of my brain.

I heard Sonic say, "Shadow, what's wrong?"

I couldn't answer. My mouth and throat did not belong to me.

I felt Nox grip my spines until he pinched. "Shadow, no, come on, fight him!"

Iron bars. I struggled and encountered them, icy cold, unforgiving, cruel. "Mekion!" I screamed inside. "Let me go!"

"You think you deserve freedom when my master is displeased?" snapped Mekion.

I fought the bars. "You're the one who took over and attacked those first aliens, Mekion!"

"Doom doesn't know that," he purred. "Watch as I re-enter his good graces."

Shadow is successfully contained. This is the first time that I have been able to keep him conscious while I took control. The opportunity is too good to waste.

I force our body to its feet and turn to face Sonic. I target his heart and raise my pistol to cover him. He stares at us. "Shadow, what are you doing?"

"I am Mekion," I hiss with Shadow's mouth. "I shall atone for the deaths of those aliens by killing their killer." I squeeze both pressure plates. Burning plasma tears through the air, but Sonic is gone. An instant later he flashes into view halfway up the street, a green Chaos Emerald clutched in his left hand.

My video sensors zoom in and focus on it. Second emerald. For an instant I savor the idea of gathering all seven and bathing myself in their power. Ultimate power.

Shadow struggles against his bonds, but he is nowhere near breaking them. I ignore him and charge after Sonic, trying to achieve a lock on his midsection. My sensors inform me that the Eye is following to watch. I will indeed redeem myself when Sonic dies.

I run straight at Sonic, who watches me, pistol hanging at his side. The instant before I curl into a spindash, he uses Chaos Control to vanish. I attempt to do the same, switching my orange emerald from my right hand to my left. Chaos power tingles through my wires and circuits. I try to take control of it, but nothing happens. I quickly write a program to re-route the power input through Shadow's core.

To my annoyance, he laughs from within the bars. "You don't know how to use Chaos energy, do you, Mekion?"

"I'll learn how within seconds," I snap. I direct the energy to his brain, but it is deflected by our Chaos shielding. I replay video footage of Shadow using Chaos Spear, and return the emerald to his right hand. But now I cannot trace its power.

Shadow continues to laugh at me. My frustration is mounting. An unexpected diversion arrives when Sonic flashes out of nowhere, strikes me, and flees as quickly as he had come. I am knocked down, but bound to my feet. Collateral damage sustained twenty percent. Sonic will pay for that.

Shadow is no longer laughing. "Release me, Mekion," he snarls. "Sonic is not the enemy and you know it."

"Do I?" I retort. I pursue Sonic up the street. He runs, occasionally calling over his shoulder, "Shadow, tell me when you're back on top, okay?"

His casual attitude towards me makes me even angrier. I fire plasma bolts after him, and he vanishes and reappears out of range. According to my map of the area, we are nearing a human blockade. If Sonic intends to shelter behind it, he is mistaken!

Something stirs in my databanks. The program that Doom gave me for defense. It opens its limbs and jaws, and reaches into Shadow's body for the Chaos energy. Shadow screams. Its claws close on the emerald through Shadow's hand, and a power meter appears on my inner screen. The meter spikes toward the red zone.

Ahead of us, Sonic vaults an overturned car that is part of the human blockade. I leap on top of it and look down at him and the pathetic humans with him. My power level is maxed out. I scream, "Chaos Blast!" and smash the emerald down on the car's surface.

Fascinating. Shadow must have used a variation of this move to destroy the Egg Fleet. A sheet of flame explodes from my body in all directions, blowing the blockade to fragments and scattering soldiers like leaves. Sonic is blown into a nearby wall, where his Chaos field flames around him in a green bubble.

Shadow and Nox scream at the same time. Nox is knocked off my shoulder by the blow. I turn my head (Shadow's impulse?) to see where he went, just in time to see him flare up with the fire into a burning golden phoenix. He beats his four wings, swoops over me and settles over the fallen humans and Sonic. To my disappointment he stabilizes all of their life signs. Then he stands erect, folds his wings, and turns to look at me.

Smoke boils from his eyes.

I turn and run.

Chapter 4: Airborne combat

Chapter Text

I came to in the burning rubble of what had once been a concrete building. What happened? Where was Nox?

I spun in a circle, coughing in the smoke. What a place to wake up. No sign of Nox, chao-form or phoenix, so I sprinted out of the rubble, stumbling over broken rebar and twisted support beams. I reached a street and looked around, panting. Every building for as far as the eye could see was on fire, and the heat was enough to bake me where I stood. Did Nox do this, or was it the Black Arms?

I ran from there, my skates sputtering but still working. As far as I could see, I was alone. Not even Doom's Eye had bothered to follow me. What in the world had Mekion done in the interval that I was unconscious? I pressed a hand over my nose and mouth, and tried to breathe through my glove. The heat was making my head swim. The Chaos Emerald in my left hand was so hot that it was making my robotic sensors react. Stupid me. Chaos relocate!

In three teleports I was out of the burning district, and the air was much cooler. This street looked as if a battle had swept through it; pavement was torn up in great chunks, cars lay on their sides, and a fire hydrant spouted water in a dismal sort of way. Water. My throat was parched.

After drinking a gallon of lukewarm liquid, my mind felt clearer. I moved away from the noisy rushing water and listened. I could hear the distant thunder of the fire I had just left. Somewhere in the distance were sirens and the popping of gunfire, echoing off the sides of the building. Nothing stirred. I was utterly alone. Sonic, Nox, and Black Doom had all abandoned me.

While I tried to feel sorry about this, deep down I was relieved that there was nobody here for Mekion to harm. Nobody but me, and he had returned control to me, hadn't he?

As I stood there, wondering what to do next, I heard a strange sound overhead. Having learned that the Black Arms preferred the Death From Above strategy, I bolted to the nearest doorway and peered out from there.

Purring overhead was a disk-shaped ship the size of a passenger jet. Green and blue lights flashed from its rim, and a single large green light winked from the center of its belly. It had an escort of five aliens on their winged beasts. I watched as the procession swept overhead and out of sight, the hum of the engine fading into silence.

A wild idea occurred to me.

At once I teleported to the top of the nearest skyscraper, jumped to the next one, teleported ahead to the top of a power pole, flashed to the corner of a lower building-

And from there to the back of one of the flying creatures.

The rider was not pleased to see me, and we had a disagreement about which of us would be steering. But after taking a back-hand in the teeth from my metal fist, the rider decided that walking was preferable, and vacated the saddle. Or maybe I'd knocked him out. The Black Arms don't have eyelids, so it's hard to tell.

I slid into the saddle, grasped the two large horns sprouting from the manta-dragon's shoulders, and was faced with a crash course in Alien Flying 101. I discovered that pulling, pushing and tilting the horns, which were attached to flexible joints behind the manta's neck, made the beast drop, accelerate, rise and bank from side to side. It followed my commands instantly, like a machine. It must have been fantastically well-trained. There was a smaller third spike between the two large ones, and I had an inkling about what it did.

I turned my manta's head toward the nearest alien and mount, sighted between the two ear-spikes on my beast's head, and yanked that third spike. There was a puff of red smoke, and one of those projectiles fired from the top wing-joint. It curved through the air and punched a hole through the alien rider's torso. On the far side, the projectile exploded into sparkling purple particles that drifted down upon the city below. As that alien toppled from the saddle, I drew a bead on the next alien up the formation. But the explosion had drawn the attention of the other riders, and they guided their mounts around to deal with me. I dispatched another of them with another well-placed slug, then saw the three other riders fill the air with their own murderous missiles.

"Chaos control!" I shouted.

The aliens, UFO craft, and missiles stood still. My manta continued to glide forward placidly, not seeming to notice that its fellows were attacking it. I rolled to the side to avoid the missiles. As we passed them, I saw that the missiles were actually slim worm-like grubs with frills along their bodies to ensure even flight. Their heads were armored with black horn, insuring their ability to punch through concrete or flesh with equal ease. I wondered what made them explode.

My manta stretched out its neck, snatched a grub out of midair, and swallowed it. Oddly enough, it burped from the openings on its shoulders. Wondering uncomfortably about the anatomy of these beasts, I wheeled my manta about and fired point-blank at the three pilots from behind.

When time started again, the three aliens were surprised to find themselves being blasted out of the sky by their own weapons.

Now I had four additional manta-dragons at my disposal, and I had to persuade them to do what I wanted. Riderless, they were slowing down, heads turning from side to side, searching for landing places. And all the while, the flying saucer was flying further and further ahead. I goaded my manta after it. Then I teleported to the back of the next manta. It felt me and immediately sped after the manta I had just left, trying to return to formation. I let it, and teleported to the other mantas in turn.

Once I had them all back in their positions behind the saucer, I began shooting their grub missiles at the saucer, one at a time. The saucer had shields around it, which rippled and shimmered green with each impact. To my surprise, every time a grub exploded in a glittering purple cloud, the nearest manta would swoop through it, jaws open, and red gas puffed from their wings. I figured that they must need the energy to spawn more worm-missiles or something, and let them get on with it.

The high buildings of the city's center fell away, and we soared above a burning, blackened city marred by smoke and angry red flames. Now I could see that the flying saucer was headed for the ridge in the near distance, where the bulk of Sapphire City's residents lived. The east side, which was full of evacuees ... I imagined Nick falling to the ground with plasma burning into his back. No. Not while I was breathing.

I teleported among the mantas so fast that they all seemed to fire at once. Then they dove forward to devour the remains of the exploded missiles. The saucer's shield was dimmer with each barrage. I might be able to take it down before it neared the houses ...

The next barrage took the shield down completely, but now the saucer pilots seemed to have noticed where this attack was coming from. It rotated in midair and fired plasma bolts that might have melted a tank. My mantas parted ranks and neatly dodged the bolts, and I made them all fire again.

The saucer took the first three hits without flinching, but the next few hits punched holes in its armor. I fired from my last manta, and the worms flew through the openings, burrowed into the machinery inside, and detonated.

Liquid purple flame splashed from the entire circumference of the saucer. I must have hit the plasma chambers. Enveloped in black smoke, the saucer fell from the sky, toppling end over end, to explode in a spectacular blue fireball in a parking lot hundreds of feet below.

I grabbed my manta's steering horns and guided it back the way we had come. The others broke ranks and flew away in different directions, looking for places to land. My own manta's wingbeats were slower, more weary. It wanted to descend, too, but I fought its horns and kept it flying. It had to get back and find Nox and Sonic. I had to know what I had done.

We had chased the saucer a long way. It was twenty minutes before I spotted the burning buildings where I had awakened. I kept my manta away from the heat and smoke, and tried to figure out how I had reached this area. It didn't look familiar at all. I circled, looking for signs of life, and caught sight of flashing lights eight blocks over. I turned my manta in that direction.

In the distance I heard a rhythmic thump-thump-thump sound. It sounded familiar in a foreboding way. I peered around and saw a helicopter rising from a helipad on a skyscraper. Its gleaming co*ckpit turned in my direction. I looked at my manta and swore. They had no way of knowing that I wasn't an alien.

The helicopter was flying in my direction, fast, and I saw that it was one of the combat deals with twin machine guns. It had to be within range, as fast as it was moving-

I teleported off the manta just as several hundred tracer bullets effectively ended its threat to Mobius. I reappeared in the street below, and watched as the sad, tattered remains of my manta crashed to the pavement. As it lay there, I saw the missile-worms crawl out of its shoulders and burrow into the pavement. I bolted, and heard them explode behind me. Helpful or not, the manta was still a member of the Black Arms. Although I could think of several more humane ways of putting it out of its misery.

I rounded a corner and nearly plowed into the Eye. It was floating lazily in place, for all the world like it was waiting for me. As I skidded to a halt, Doom's voice boomed in my ears. "Shadow, you are a traitor."

"Oh, for the UFO, right," I said. "Well, here's to that." I gave the Eye a crude gesture.

Even aliens know when they've been insulted. They Eye's expression did not change (no eyelids), but its tentacles made clenching motions, as if it would like to sieze me and tear my limbs off.

"You are too arrogant for a parasite," growled Doom. "Perhaps this will teach you respect."

The Eye swooped at me with the speed of a bullet, and cracked me across the head with a tentacle. It hurt, and there was a power in it that broke Mekion's wall. I heard him whining in pain and confusion. I fell for an endless time, finally hitting the ground with enough force to leave a crater. Consciousness drained away like sand through an hourglass, and I sank into blackness.

Shadow. Shadow. Shadow.

My name repeated over and over, like the ticking of a clock. Consciousness began to trickle back into my brain. My face was resting on dirt. I tasted it in my mouth. My head throbbed as if my skull had split, and each heartbeat formed the words, "Shadow. Shadow. Shadow. Shadow."

Finally I realized that it was Mekion speaking. I lifted my head a fraction and forced my eye open. For a moment the robot half of my body was absent, and all I could hear was that nagging voice. Then my metal returned as dead weight. Mekion's eye flickered on. "Reboot complete," he said, sounding annoyed. "The teleport damaged my control center and temporarily suspended motor commands."

I sat up and gingerly rubbed the knot on my head. "What happened? You said we teleported?"

"The Eye did it," said Mekion sulkily. "His blow damaged my security software."

That was when it occurred to me that Mekion was communicating, not merely taunting me. "Let me guess," I said. "He made it so you can't block me."

There was a long pause, then Mekion said, "Correct."

I grinned to myself, who did not appreciate it. "So then, Mekion, why did you let me attack that UFO if you're working for Doom?"

Mekion said nothing, but now that his blocking measures were gone, I sensed a sort of digital resentment from him.

I looked around, blinking away blurriness. I was sitting in the shade of a pillar that was fifteen feet across at the blase. Thirty feet above the ground it was broken off, the edges softened by years of weather. I was glad of the shade, because burning sand stretched away in all directions. Here and there, more pillars and jumbled stones poked above the cacti and sagebrush. The sky was purest blue, and there was total silence. I didn't realize how accustomed to city noise I was.

I stood up. The silence was eerie. "Mekion, where are we?"

Without his block, I realized just how far he had penetrated into my mind. When he opened his map program, I saw it with both eyes, not just my robot one. I shook my head and blinked, trying to see the outer world again. All I did was make the map program transparent, so I could see through it. I watched as Mekion scanned for a satellite, located one, and extended a search probe to investigate its security. Information flashed through a side window. Mekion uploaded his hacking worm, and within seconds we had access to satellite radar.

He scanned for our tracking number, located us, and panned over the West Mobius continent. My heart sank as the image moved away from Sapphire City and out toward the middle, where the green gave way to yellow-brown. Our blip appeared near the middle. "Location confirmed," said Mekion. "We are in-"

"The Great Desert, yeah," I said. I felt his irritation. How strange ... Mekion had emotions now? Or was he only manipulating mine to represent his? I wished for Nox. I hoped that he would be all right without me ...

"So, what now?" I thought. "Doom did a good job of getting rid of us, didn't he?"

Mekion didn't answer, because a distant boom broke the silence of the desert like a sledgehammer through a mirror. I spun around to see a cloud of smoke billowing up from the southern horizon. I dashed toward it.

"Shadow."

I spun around in mid-stride. Behind me floated the Eye, keeping up with me as though I were standing still. "Not you again," I snarled, and kept running.

I could still hear his voice, though. "The humans have noticed the concentration of our troops, and have come to stop us," he said. "You must wonder at the source of these ruins around you."

"Not really," I said, but Mekion said, "Yes, we observed them." I shot Mekion a mental glare. He returned it.

"Shadow," said the Eye, or Doom, or whoever was talking. "I have something you might need." I looked over my shoulder and saw that one tentacle was coiled around my orange Chaos Emerald.

I reversed directions. "Thanks," I said. "I thought you wanted them?" As I took the emerald, I realized that the alien's body heat had made the gem red-hot. I switched it to my robot hand before my glove caught fire.

"I desire all seven," said Doom. "You are useless without your emerald."

I had already taken off running again, but this remark made me bristle with indignation. "Hey, watch who you're calling-"

I was interrupted as the ground ended, and I sailed off into space.

"If you had analyzed the map," said Mekion sarcastically, "you might have noticed that we are on the edge of a shelf of land two miles above the remainder of the desert."

"Shut up," I snarled, which is difficult to do while in freefall toward rocks two miles below. "Chaos relocate!"

The trouble with teleporting out of freefall is that even though you teleport to the ground, your momentum still slams you into it pretty hard.

As I lay back up on the clifftop, hoping that my lungs would decide to inflate soon, the Eye observed me. "If you are curious about the explosion, it was caused by one of our damaged gunships striking the cliff wall."

I had no breath to speak, so Mekion said, "Who damaged the gunship?"

"A particularly determined Mobian of unidentifiable species," said Doom. "Pity that the annelids shall have to destroy him."

My lungs let in a trickle of air, and I gasped, "Annelid?"

"Yes," said the Eye. "Follow me."

It is an interesting sensation to have half of your body get up. My robot arm and leg hoisted themselves almost to a standing position, while my living half was still doubled up and choking for air. The Eye drifted away along the top of the cliff, and Mekion and I followed at different speeds. This resulted in me walking in several circles before I got my legs sorted out and my lungs started accepting oxygen again.

The Eye led me deeper into the ruins. Here were collapsed buildings, tunnels filled with windswept sand, pillars engraved with writing too eroded to read. Here and there I saw various aliens, all busy digging the tunnels open. They paid no attention to the Eye and me.

"The warriors are taught to be efficient at everything they do," said Doom. "And I am aware that you have already familiarized yourself with the Oaks and Hawks."

One of the giants that I had seen before turned its head and watched us pass. So that was a 'black oak'. I wondered if Doom's translation to New Mobian was entirely accurate. The Black Hawks must be the manta-dragons. They didn't look like hawks to me, but I supposed, again, that the translation from Black Armish wasn't entirely perfect.

The Eye halted. "Ahh, here are the Annelids."

We had come to a wide sandy area where several pillars once stood. Now they laid in cracked chunks on the ground. The annelids turned out to be giant worm things with three jaws. They were busy looping in and out of the ground, occasionally rearing up fifteen feet to snap at something on one of the broken pillars.

My vision zoomed in on the figure on the pillar. Mekion traced it with a scanline and ID matched it. Red fur. Dreadlocks. Echidna. Knuckles. "He's on our side," I told Mekion in the privacy of my head.

"Whose side is that?" Mekion retorted. I looked up at the floating Eye, then down at the pendant on my chest. Whose side was I on, anyway?

"The annelids track their prey by infrared sensors in their bodies," said Doom. "They also have a sophisticated sense of smell."

I watched as a worm lunged at Knuckles, who punched it in the head with one of his signature fists. Metal glinted in the sun. He was wearing some sort of steel coverings over his knuckles. Wise echidna. The worm fell to the ground with two broken jaws.

"Doom, I hope you don't mind if I watch from over here," I said, circling the sandy arena.

"Do not disturb the annelids," Doom replied.

I sensed Mekion's snarl. "What are you doing?"

"Nothing," I replied. "Absolutely-" I dashed into the arena, leaped into the air, spun and landed on the head of a worm as it emerged from the sand to greet me. There was a satisfying crunch. "-nothing."

I lightly leaped up on the pillar beside Knuckles.

He spun to face me, and his eyes widened. "Shadow! What're you doing here? I thought-" He broke off, having just noticed the Eye.

I shrugged. "No point in letting the annelids get you."

One of them reared up to attack us, and I looked straight down its slimy throat. I lunged forward, grabbed it just under the jaws, and body-slammed it, metal side down. Wounded and bleeding purple slime, it tried to burrow back into the sand, but I grabbed it around the middle, slung it over my head in an arc, and beat its head against the pillar.

"Nice," said Knuckles. "If you break their faces, they can't burrow."

"They have faces?" I said, spindashing another that had emerged. It escaped me, and I turned to see Knuckles watching me with a frown.

"Why are you helping me? Really?"

"I was bored?" I said, as Mekion refused to scan for Annelids.

Knuckles shot a look at the Eye. "So why is that thing watching us?"

"I'm not supposed to help you," I said. "It wants me to work for it, but I don't. Stop it, Mekion." Mekion was sneakily trying to put those iron bars around me again. Mentally I caught them and forced them back while sticking out my tongue at Mekion.

Knuckles jumped off the pillar and jogged out of the arena. "Well, thanks, but I don't need your help."

I glanced at the Eye, who whispered, "Kill him."

I didn't answer. What Doom didn't know wouldn't hurt him. I skated after Knuckles.

Chapter 5: Unleash a million faces

Chapter Text

The echidna moved fast. By the time I caught up to him, he had knocked out three black warriors, and had just dealt a black oak a crippling blow to the knee. It buckled, bringing its head within reach. Knuckles cracked it in the middle of the forehead and laid it out neatly. Then he noticed me and grunted. "You again. What do you want?"

"I'm supposed to kill you," I told him. "I'd like to know why."

He sized me up. "You gonna try it?"

I shrugged. "Think you deserve killing?"

Knuckles smiled for the first time. "I'll bet the aliens really find me annoying. I came to check out these ruins that they like so much." He gestured to a partially cleared tunnel nearby.

"What are they looking for?" I asked. "Chaos Emeralds?"

Knuckles shrugged and walked down into the tunnel. "There's no emeralds in this area. But from what GUN can gather, the Black Arms are digging toward some sort of underground power source." He shot me a sideways glance, as if expecting me to deny or confirm this. I only shrugged. I didn't know what Doom was after.

Knuckles jerked his head at me. "Get out of the way."

Before I had a chance to react, he crouched over the sand at the back of the tunnel and began to dig like a dog, flinging sand between his legs. I backed hurriedly out of the tunnel and watched as dust and sand flew out. As I stood there, I saw the Eye floating at a distance, watching me. I wished it would stop.

The flying dirt stopped, and Knuckles emerged, holding his nose. "Needs to air out." I almost asked why. Then the stench from below assaulted my nostrils, and I backed away. It smelled like eons of rotted fish had just been exposed to the air, and was flash-decomposing. "Aliens down there?" I asked Knuckles.

He shook his head. "Looks like a piece of their planet." He pulled a dreadlock across his nose, and walked cautiously back down the tunnel. Careful to breathe only through my mouth, I did the same.

Knuckles had broken open a room beyond the buried tunnel. It was lit with a gruesome purplish light, which came from round bladder-like growths on the walls. These were attached to vine-things like poisonous seaweed. Generations of the stuff had died and covered the floor in mats of rubbery filth, and I swore I could see it moving. Knuckles prodded it with a toe. When nothing grabbed him, he strode into the room, his shoes squishing the vines underfoot. They popped like kelp. I followed him, wondering what kind of hideous place the Black Arms' planet was.

A dim green light shimmered from the rear of the room. Mekion cast a scan over it (he was busy cataloging everything in the room, which was distracting), and announced, "High power levels detected. It seems to be a dormant fusion reactor. It has strong magnetic shielding."

I walked up to it. It was a glowing green mass of energy five feet across, in a glass sphere supported by stone legs. It rested in some kind of dish on the floor, which the vines had covered. None had climbed up to the glowing sphere, though.

"I think we've found the power source," said Knuckles.

I nodded. No need for him to know the results of Mekion's scan.

The Eye whispered inside my head, "There is a green panel on the leg nearest you. Touch it with your organic hand."

I saw it-glowing faintly and very dusty. I laid my hand on it.

The fusion core flamed out of its dormant state, and the vines in the dish beneath it caught fire. The room quivered. "What did you do?" Knuckles yelped, backing toward the door.

"I activated it," I said. "And ... there's more of these." The words forced themselves out of me. Somehow I knew that there were four other fusion cores, lying dormant, waiting for a command from an alien.

...or me.

"What do you mean, more?" Knuckles demanded as we gained the fresher air of the tunnel. "What do they do?"

"How should I know?" I snapped. "That was Mekion, not me."

("Was not!")

Knuckles gave me a slanted look. "Sure sounded like you."

I didn't bother to argue. I was too disturbed at the idea of alien technology responding to my touch. Had Doom touched it telepathically through me? Did it require any touch to activate? Or had it something to do with the medallion around my neck? I looked to Mekion, who gave me a blank stare.

As we arrived at the surface, I spun to stare at the Eye. It watched me, cold as a reptile. I turned my back on it and looked at Knuckles, who was also watching me.

"That your boss?" he said.

"He's not my boss," I said.

Knuckles motioned to my chest. "So what's with the jewelry?"

I grabbed it with a snarl and tried to pull it off over my head. But it stuck to me like a magnet, and no matter how hard I yanked it, I couldn't budge it. When I stopped, I realized that Knuckles was backing away slowly, one eyebrow raised. "It won't come off," I panted.

He nodded. "Right. I'll be going, then." He turned and ran off.

I had the brief, murderous urge to chase him down and introduce him to Mekion's spines, but annoying or not, Knuckles was an ally. I couldn't hurt him. Yet.

I turned back to the Eye. "Why could I activate the power core?"

"You are a powerful being," replied Doom's voice. "The panels sense it within you and recieve the amount of power needed to activate."

I almost brought up his remark about me being useless without my emerald, but bit my tongue. It obviously involved chaos power. "Where are the others?" I asked.

Doom's Eye led me around the ruins to where the Black Arms had excavated more of the fusion cores. I activated each one with a touch, as the Eye and the Arms looked on. I didn't think about what I was doing, beyond figuring that it wouldn't hurt anything, so far from the population centers.

The last power core was far deeper underground than the others. The Eye led me down tunnel after tunnel, each one curving and descending. The air grew damp, and there was that same unpleasant rotten odor. The purple growths appeared on the walls to light our way, and even breathing through my mouth, I could taste the foulness.

The final passage gave way to a vast room, far larger than the previous ones. The fusion core sat in its bubble in the middle of the room, but here, instead of the alien plant, there were thick red rope-like things that covered the walls. They looked like blood vessels. Each one fed into a huge bulbous thing on the wall, all with large round panels on their fronts.

"Activate it," said the Eye.

"Mekion," I whispered as I walked toward the fusion core, "what is this place?"

His scans traced the bulb-screens and the veins. "It has a fifty-three percent chance of being a control center."

I touched the fusion core's panel and instantly regretted it. The veins pulsed with power. The screens in the bulbs lit up. A troop of Black Warriors ran in and began stroking the bulbs and their screens, making crooning, coughing noises to each other. Then the room began to shake.

I turned to face the Eye, who headed off my questions. "This fortress was concealed here many thousands of years ago. The surface structures have collapsed due to the erosion of your planet's weather, but underground, our terraforming agents have done their work." The room gave a lurch, and all the warriors fell silent, their hands still moving over their consoles.

"Ah, our launch is successful," said the Eye. "Perhaps you would prefer to remain on the surface?" I nodded and teleported back to the sun and clean air of the desert.

Except the piece of desert I was on had broken off from the cliff, and was flying along on its own power.

"Hovering mass is two miles long and a quarter of a mile wide," Mekion told me, displaying a 3D rough of the ship. For ship it was; shaped like a lance, crusted with rock and earth. It had no visible jets or thrusters, but some sort of force held it aloft anyway, driven by those fusion cores.

The Eye appeared behind me, shimmering out of its crackling electrical portal. "We had anticipated this ritual on your planet, and deposited this fortress here to ensure our air superiority over the native troops."

I envisioned this giant ship filling the sky above Sapphire City, and my stomach slithered around inside me like an upset slug. "Mekion, why didn't you stop me?"

"I didn't know it was a ship," he replied coldly. "Had I known, you would also have known."

The airship was moving forward now. I felt the motion under me, and the wind shifted and began to comb through my spines. I wondered where Knuckles was, and if he had fallen off when the ship had launched. I watched as the horizon dropped away, and felt my ear pop as we gained altitude. It was exhilarating to know that I had helped this massive craft take off ... and also horrible, because I had given the Black Arms another terrible weapon for their arsenal.

"How fascinating," Doom remarked. "It seems that we have inadvertently triggered an attack from the surface."

I looked around for this attack, and Mekion zoomed in my vision with both eyes. I staggered and fell to all fours, disoriented. "Mekion!"

"Targets acquired," he snapped at me. He lifted our head and turned it, and with my binocular zoom-vision I saw round, red robots on jetpacks descending on the alien ship in a swarm.

"Dr. Robotnik must have a laboratory here," Mekion observed.

To me, that was far worse than the dilemma of aliens. Dr. Robotnik was the one who had damaged Mekion's operating system so much that I could no longer remain anywhere near Mecha. Robotnik had also tortured me scientifically to learn the limitations on my chaos powers. The wounds still ached sometimes, even though they had healed long ago. He had used me as an instrument to kill Nick Karabian, who had miraculously survived. If anything, I had a bigger reason to kill Robotnik than I did the aliens.

I broke into a run, charged into the middle of the oncoming robots, and teleported here and there, somersaulting into spins and tearing the robots apart with my metal spines. Mekion dragged at me, slowing my reflexes. "Robotnik is our true master, Shadow. Stop harming his units!"

I mentally kicked him. "Leave me alone, Mekion! He is our enemy, understand?"

We had a violent disagreement in midair. I missed my targeted robot and fell flat on my face. The robot aimed its laser cannon at me.

A Black Oak smashed the robot into a pancake with one massive fist.

I scrambled to my feet, spitting out sand, as more of the Black Arms waded into the robots, doing more damage than I could.

"Shadow," said Doom, "two Chaos Emeralds have been detected within the outpost below. Perhaps you would retrieve them for me?"

I looked at the Eye, then at the robots. I was torn. On one hand, I didn't want the Black Arms to get their scaley mitts on Mobius's chaos powers-but on the other hand, taking the Chaos Emeralds from Robotnik definitely meant upsetting his research.

"Okay," I said.

Finding Robotnik's base was easy. Below the Arms' ship was a broken, rocky mountain range that split the desert like the spine of some huge beast. Robots poured from a fissure in a cliff. Upon teleporting there, I discovered that the 'fissure' was the entrance to a cavern, and was hundreds of feet wide. It was guarded by robots the size of the Black Oaks, except these were armored and wielding spiked clubs. I had seen these things before. Before they noticed me I was gone, appearing and disappearing in short teleport-hops.

I zipped through the cavern entrance, blinked through a closing door, smashed some small robots because they were ugly, and stopped only when I entered a large room that had once housed robots. Empty and echoing now, it had fifteen doors in the walls, and I was unsure where to go.

"Mekion, scan," I said.

Mekion didn't respond.

I prodded him. "Mekion, I'm talking to you."

"I refuse to work against my master."

The word was such a betrayal of Mecha that my stomach clenched. I tried to force Mekion to initiate his program, but he sprouted extra heads and claws to deter me. It was a very clear image in my mind's eye, and it unnerved me. "Where did you get those?"

"Who do you think gave me this power?" he hissed from his black throats. "Soon I will destroy you this way. It is not an illusion."

Fortunately we were both distracted by the click of a weapon being co*cked three inches from my left ear. Mekion had not been paying attention to his peripheral vision, and when he refuses to see, I'm blind on the left. We turned to see a robot shaped like a sphere with arms and legs. Its eyes were two red lenses set deep under a metal plate on top of the sphere. E-123, said the print across its chest, and below that was the Omega symbol.

Vividly I remembered this same robot being torn apart in the jaws of a gigantic robot dragon. Its remains had gathered dust in a storage room at home in the bunker for a year. Yet here it stood, as if it had stepped off the assembly line a moment before.

It still had not fired. It continued to cover me, but made no other movement. An outlandish idea sneaked into the back of my mind and fingered the valuables. "Nox?"

Omega lowered its gun. It raised its hand to its head, unscrewed it and popped it off. A black chao's head emerged from beneath and blinked at me. "Hi Shadow! Wow, it's good to see you. The others are scary."

"Where'd you find a new Omega?" I asked.

Nox ducked back down inside, and the robot screwed its head back on. His voice came through the synthesizer, modified and distorted. "Well, when Mekion took you over, I chased him, but he got away and I lost you. So I went back and found Sonic. He was pretty banged up. He went back to the command center, and I did, too. That's when we heard that Doom's army had moved its focus to some spot out in the desert. Sonic called up Knuckles and told him. You know how I can do my teleport? I did that and teleported to the Floating Island, and came out here with Knuckles. But he told me that Robotnik had a base here. I figured you'd be here, so I came in, and I found this robot in that room back there. Along with a bunch of other ones. No pilots, so I stole one. I've been killing Shadows ever since."

"Killing shadows?" I said, envisioning Omega blowing holes in walls whenever a shadow fell across them.

"Yeah," said Omega-Nox, turning and striding up to a door. "I think Robotnik's breeding them. Or whatever. Stay behind me." He touched the ID plate by the door with his metal hand, and raised his arm to point the barrel of his weapon at the door. I heard the attachment inside begin to spin as the door rolled open.

"Accelerated chaingun barrel," Mekion remarked.

Then the door was open, and I was eye to eye with three black hedgehogs. Their spines were striped with red. They all wore hoverskates. And all three carried Uzis in their arms, which they leveled on us.

I blinked to one side by reflex as they opened fire. I whipped around to see the bullets ricocheting off a silver shield like a half-bubble around Omega. He fired through it, his chaingun pumping out fifteen bullets per second.

The hedgehogs tried to scramble out of the way, but one of them took sixty rounds to the torso that tore him in half. His insides were metal and plastic, like a computer. The other two charged at Omega. They bounced off his shield, and one of them crossed the hail of bullets from the rifle and shattered into pieces. The third mechanical hedgehog ran for it, but Omega got him before he had gone thirty feet.

Then there was silence. My ears throbbed, and static filled Mekion's aural sensor.

Omega reloaded with a loud click, ejecting an empty cartridge belt and hundreds of shells out of his shoulder. "Take their guns," he told me. "The ones that use rocket launchers are really hard to kill."

Feeling slightly shocked at Nox's callous efficiency, I stepped over to the mess of twisted plastic that had been a hedgehog. A duplicate Shadow. "Mekion," I said, "why would Robotnik make copies of me?" I wrenched an Uzi out of a clutching robotic hand, and looked down at the hedgehog's cruel, expressionless eyes, gazing up at the ceiling. I hoped that I didn't look like that.

"Copies to discredit us?" said Mekion. His voice took on a condemning tone. "More likely, it is because you were such a failure that he built other units that operate at great efficiency."

"Nyeh to you, too," I thought. I checked the Uzi's clip, found it still full, and relieved another robot of its clip.

"So!" said Omega, retracting his gun barrel and extending his hands in their place. "What do you want to do now?"

"Robotnik has two Chaos Emeralds in here somewhere," I told him. "I want them."

Omega's head turned, and the red eyes stared at me. "You're not getting them for Doom, are you?"

"Heck no," I said, but I heard Mekion's distant laughter and felt a twist of guilt. Deep down, I knew that I was.

Nox believed me, though, which made me feel even guiltier. "Yeah, Robotnik doesn't need any Chaos Emeralds, not after what he did to you on Deimos Island. Well, according to my scans, the command center is five stories underground. C'mon, the lift is this way." He clanked away through the door, kicking bits of Shadow-bot out of the way. I followed, packing my Uzi at waist-height.

Chapter 6: Secrets in your head

Chapter Text

Robotnik's base was packed with surprises. Around the next corner we met a ceiling turret that did not welcome us. Nox melted it with a laser burst from the lens on his shoulder. When we reached the lift, it opened and a swarm of Shadows disembarked. They took offense to our presence.

Nox handled himself well, felling five of them at once. But two others dodged around him and charged me, gliding on their hoverskates as if oiled. I spindashed one and knocked it into the wall, and drove my metal fist into its face. As it crumpled, I took a blow to the metal side of my head that made Mekion go wobbly. I spun and saw that the remaining Shadow had pistol-whipped me, and was drawing back the pistol butt for another blow. I introduced him to the business end of my Uzi. The two had a brief argument and my Uzi had the last word.

In the silence that followed this skirmish, Nox-Omega said, "Robotnik knows we're here."

"We'd better take the stairs," I said.

The stairwell was a short way down the hall from the elevator, and it was empty. We crept down the first flight and paused at the landing. Mekion still refused to scan for enemies, so I could only listen. All was quiet. Omega-Nox's scanners worked perfectly, however. "Nobody," he whispered, and we descended the next flight.

Each landing had a small window in the wall opposite the door. I checked the view on each. At the first two, I saw only an empty hallway. But on the third, I saw a huge room that took up three floors' worth of space. There were a lot of pipes on eye level that ran into the wall, but under them, on the floor far below, I saw Robotnik.

"Nox, look," I whispered.

He stepped up beside me and peered out. "What's he doing?" he asked softly.

Robotnik was digging through a cabinet against the wall, shuffling through papers and files. From above, his bald head shone like a polished pink ball, and his red mustache bristled out to either side beneath it. He wore a dirty smock over his clothing, as if he had been working on machinery. As we watched, he removed a single file, which seemed to be what he was looking for. He shoved the rest back into the cabinet, shut it, and walked out of sight.

Nox-Omega and I hurried down the stairs to the fifth floor. We emerged cautiously in a hallway and were greeted by another ceiling turret. I leaped and smashed it with my metal fist, which was quieter than firing a weapon. Then we sneaked down the hall and around a corner, where we found the door to Robotnik's lab. It had a small, thick-glassed window in it, which we peered through.

We were at the other end of the three-story room. At this end was a partition set up in a three-sided box, with a desk and several computers. Robotnik was seated behind the desk, and in front of the desk was a hedgehog.

He was light brown, and wore knee-high boots that were dusty and scuffed. He carried a satchel over one shoulder. Instead of having a few large spines, like modern Mobian hedgehogs, he mad many short, sharp ones. One of the ancient races? What was he doing here?

The hedgehog and Robotnik were talking and gesturing. Robotnik kept shaking his head. Was the hedgehog threatening him? Robotnik didn't look threatened. He kept trying not to grin.

After a while the hedgehog, frowning, dug into the satchel at his side. He pulled out an object wrapped in cloth, and slowly unwrapped it. A dazzling white light flashed into being, shining through his fingers and showing the blood in them. Robotnik leaned back and adjusted his glasses. The hedgehog held the glowing thing cupped in both hands, as if it were very precious, and seemed to tell Robotnik about it. Robotnik gestured, and the hedgehog set it on the desk. It dimmed slightly, but it was still beautiful. It was a simple white glowing sphere with a touch of rainbow sheen.

Looking at it, I wanted it worse than I had ever wanted a Chaos Emerald. I had no idea why. I had never seen anything like it, and I'd have gladly swapped even the Ruling Green for it.

It had the same effect on Robotnik. He bent close and examined it, then with a few words, slid the file across the desk to the hedgehog. The hedgehog smiled, slid the file into his satchel, and moved toward our door. Robotnik scooped up the sphere and studied it.

Omega and I dashed back to the stairwell and hid until the strange hedgehog had vanished up the lift.

"What was that thing?" I asked Nox.

He looked at me. "Some kind of Chaos gem. Can we kill Robotnik for it?"

"We can try," I said, checking my Uzi's magazine. "Screw the Chaos Emeralds."

I lifted a hand to open the door, but froze. A cold steel blade pressed itself against the flesh side of my throat, and a hand gripped my robot arm. Behind me, Omega snarled, "Hold it!" I heard the click as he shifted from his hand to his chaingun.

"Shoot me and I cut his throat," said a low, calm voice. "That is, assuming I don't, anyway. Prove this is the real Shadow."

Interesting. Someone who hated the duplicates as much as we did. Mekion said to me, "I can easily break his hold and disembowel him."

"Who is it?" I asked him.

Mekion finally condescended to run a scan. He traced the model of a chameleon standing behind me with his weapon to my throat, along with various diagrams for killing him. An ID match flashed beside the image. "Espio: known member of the Chaotix Detective Agency. Aided Robotnik in destroying Mecha on the Annihilator."

"Prove I'm Shadow?" I snorted aloud. "I should ask you if you're here to help Robotnik again. In which case, I'll cut YOUR throat."

"Mm," said Espio. "I'd expect all the Shadows in this place to know that. Let me see. What's your callsign?"

"Mecha-fusion unit Alpha," I growled. "And if there are any more of those in here, we're all dead."

The knife withdrew, and I spun to face Espio. He had a squarish reptilian head with a horn on his snout. I saw that instead of a knife, he had stuck me with one of the blades on a star-shaped shuriken that he now held between two fingers. His tail was in a neat cinnamon-bun curl behind him, and I saw two more shuriken tucked into the top curl. "Hi Shadow," he said. "Or is it Mekion?"

"Depends on who you're talking to," I said. "What're you doing here?" I was in no mood to be friendly, and Omega still had Espio covered. Now I couldn't go swipe that white sphere or I'd be competing with Espio for it.

"This is a phishing trip," said Espio. "You know, mining the unsuspecting public for secure information. Except in this case, Robotnik." He looked at Omega. "You haven't shot me yet, so I assume you're not going to." He pushed Omega's arm away. I nodded at Omega-Nox, who slowly lowered it to his side. Espio looked at the symbol on Omega's chest. "I thought you got crunched on the Annihilator."

"Yes, but I'm back," said Omega. "If you're Robotnik's enemy, then we're on the same side."

"Basically," said Espio. He turned and whistled softly up the stairwell. Immediately there were footsteps, and a crocodile, an armadillo and a marge Mobian bee appeared, all carrying black briefcases and looking shifty.

"Hi," said the crocodile, whom Mekion identified as Vector. "Which way is Robotnik's office?"

"Around the corner," I said. "He was there just a minute ago, though."

"I'll check," said Espio, opening the door and whisking out. In a second his purple scales shaded to match the nondescript gray of the walls, and he was gone. I clenched my fists. If he went after that sphere, I would kill him with my bare hands.

A few seconds later he was back. "Office is empty," he announced in a whisper. "This way, hurry." The Chaotix slipped after him. I jerked my head at Omega-Nox, and we followed.

The Chaotix clustered around the door, and the bee removed a black box and several wires from his briefcase. He attached it to the electronic lock, disabled it, and darted through the opening door. The rest of us followed.

Charmy Bee re-locked the door behind us as Mighty the armadillo, Vector and Espio dashed to the desk. There was no sign of the white sphere, and I figured that Robotnik had gone to lock it up. That was probably the last I would ever see of it.

Suddenly depressed, I watched as the Chaotix set up a laptop, wired it to Robotnik's three computers, and worked silently over it. Those briefcases obviously contained enough espionage equipment to crack a bank. As they worked, Omega clanked around the partition to check out the rest of the huge room.

Espio typed furiously, then swore. Charmy slapped him. "Watch your mouth."

"It's all blocked," Espio said. "The fileserver has two layers of encryption before you can connect, and these computers don't have the key. Robotnik must use some key on a disk ..." The four quickly searched the desk and its drawer, but found no disks.

In my head, Mekion sprouted fangs and wings. "I could get in," he hissed.

"We can get in," I said, walking up.

They all looked at me. "How?"

"Mekion is basically a mutant hacking program," I said. "What are you looking for?"

The exchanged looks. Espio rose from the chair and let me sit down. "Information on the Black Arms," said Mighty. "And their connection to the Chaos Emeralds ... and the space colony ARK."

They knew what Doom wanted. But the ARK? I nodded, feeling uneasy. "Mekion, connect and search."

At last, an opportunity to exercise the software that Doom gave me. I leap to full control of our body, project our wireless signal, detect an open proxy, and I am inside.

Robotnik's interface is arranged exactly like his office. A desk that represents local files, and two windows that lead into the fileserver. They are sealed shut with chains and padlocks, and interlaced with snake-like security protocols that hiss at me.

First I search through the easily-accessible local files, opening drawers and looking through directories. I find tables listing production rates and material lists. Boring. The good stuff must be on the server.

I return to the nearest window and examine it. The security snake shakes its rattle and spreads its hood with a hiss. I sprout an extra head, one of Doom's improvements on my design. The head opens fanged jaws, grabs the snake, tears it loose and swallows it. The security protocol removed, my extra head burps up a key. I unlock the padlock with it, unhook it, and look at the chain. It is seamless, forged of stainless steel.

I sprout another head from between my shoulders. This algorithm would be tough for anyone else to crack, but I am strong. This new head grabs the chain in its teeth, which grow red-hot. Corrupted, the chain withers to ash.

I swing the window open and climb through.

"We're in," I told the Chaotix.

"That was fast," said Espio.

The fileserver flashes past at lightning speed; squares, cubes and hexagons of data. I dodge around them with expert precision. My search program is running, like a huge red arrow in front of my nose, guiding me through the maze. The maze is dynamic, changing around me as new files are written and old files are moved or deleted.

I sprout wings and beat them to hurry. Security AIs are loose in this system, and they have detected my unauthorized entry. I hear their alert howls and cries, like wolves and hawks.

My red search arrow turns gold and points to a large octagon of data. I dive through its opaque wall. Inside is a library full of books, all neatly catalogued and organized. I fold my wings, which disappear. In their place I sprout multiple arms and snatch books off the shelves. I grow as many heads as my RAM will support, and read the books as fast as I can grab them, storing their data.

There is a lot of data on the Black Arms. They have visited Mobius before, but in smaller numbers, and in secret. Their leaders showed special interest in the space colony ARK ...

A screech! A bird with a cruel barbed beak and multicolored wings bursts through the wall. I retract my arms and heads, throw a table at it, and dive through the far wall. As the hawk struggles with my power lapse, I re-enter the fileserver and flash along at the speed of light, again searching. I need information on the ARK now ...

A shark the size of a whale leaps out of the datastream to intercept me! I change directions and flow away at an angle, but it pursues me, jaws open and teeth gleaming.

I inflate my data and grow to match its size, filling the memory buffers with junk data. I split into a hundred serpantoid heads and a thousand clawed feet and tear the enemy AI's data to pieces, corrupting what I cannot delete or consume.

I shrink back to a thought and a search program and leave the mess for garbage collection to clean up.

The ARK information is stored in a nine-sided crystal with gleaming sides, meaning the files are protected. I circle it, receiving errors as I touch it. Time for a little deception. I leave the crystal and dive deep beneath the data flow, where it is cold and dark. This is the home of the security programs, deep in the operating system. I float there, waiting. One of the AIs is sure to notice me.

Sure enough, within nanoseconds the tentacle of a kraken snakes up from the depths. I grab it and pull. Instantly I am surrounded by more tentacles, each armed with data-destroying suckers. I dive toward the center and open my jaws, becoming huge, scaley, a tyrannosaurus with flippers, and bite at the kraken's kernel. It lashes my data with its suckers. I feel wounds open that bleed data. But I have the kraken's entire body in my mouth now. I bite off the arms and gulp it down. My CPU usage spikes to one hundred percent and my memory bloats. This was the primary security program.

Slow and glutted, I return to the surface of the data stream and find the crystal. The security kraken has provided me with the keys to open it. I transform into Robotnik and step through the crystal.

Inside is a single book that is three feet high. I sieze it and begin downloading, deleting portions of the kraken as I go.

"Mekion," Shadow says in my ear, "Robotnik is at the office door. We have to move."

"Five seconds," I reply, focused on the download.

"We don't have five seconds! I have to teleport us out!"

"Two, one, complete," I reply, irritated. "Logging out."

I teleported almost by instinct, blinded by Mekion's hacking exploits. We landed on the top of the mountain, thousands of feet above Robotnik's office. The hot wind cut into my sweaty face, cooling it.

I blinked and looked around as Mekion allowed my eyes to refocus. Vector, Espio, Mighty and Charmy were clutching their briefcases and equipment, which were in tangled jumbles from hasty disassembly. Beside them stood Nox. I blinked. Nox was twice as tall as me. Was Mekion still affecting my vision? I rubbed my eye.

His beak parted in a grin, and his mouth glowed blue. "I found Robotnik's two emeralds," he said. "They were hooked up to some machines in that room, and I wanted them worse than I wanted Omega. Aren't I cool?" He pranced in a circle on the rocks, letting me examine him. His color and gold tailfeathers were the same, but his beak had become larger and thicker. He could probably rip me to shreds, if he wanted. But Nox had no idea of his new power. "I'll get bigger with each new emerald," he gloated. "I wonder when I'll get bigger wings?" He flapped his tiny wings uselessly.

"Nice," said Vector without looking at Nox. "Shadow, what information did you get?"

"Excuse me, I found the information," Mekion snapped in my head.

I rolled my eye. "Mekion found it. Mekion, what'd you learn?"

Mekion took control of my mouth, and behind my eyes, multiple screens opened and scrolled through pictures and text. "Dr. Robotnik has been visiting the space colony ARK in secret for the past several months, conveying industrial equipment and parts there. There are lists of construction robots. Encrypted content. Decoding ... done. Modifications are being made to the Eclipse Cannon to enable it to fire, powered purely by solar energy.

The Chaotix gasped, and so did I. "Wait, wait," said Espio. "Solar energy? Didn't that thing have to use Chaos Emeralds before?"

"Yes," I said, and in the same breath, Mekion added, "The Eclipse Cannon has always been capable of utilizing solar power as a secondary source. Dr. Robotnik is merely rerouting the main power-cells."

As I inhaled, the Chaotix muttered to each other. "This is bad," said Vector. "We have to warn the others." The crocodile turned to us. "Anything else, Mekion?"

"Yes," said Mekion, sounding so pleased that I knew it couldn't be anything good. "Included in the documents are Shadow's schematics. From when he was built on the ARK."

"Built?" I said, turning my head toward Mekion.

He grinned. "Yes. Robotnik duplicated your design with the android Shadows in his base."

The Chaotix stared and edged backwards.

"That makes no sense," I snapped. "I have blood, and those things had robotics. Not even nanotech."

"So you think," gloated Mekion.

Mighty waved a hand at me. "Will you cut it out? We have to get to Rio del Fuego, quick. Could you teleport us?"

"Why not?" I said. I held up my orange chaos emerald to Nox, who dipped his head and took it. He immediately expanded in size, two long decorative plumes sprouting from his tail. I hooked an arm around his neck, and the Chaotix gathered around and laid their hands on him, too. None of them wanted to touch me.

"Chaos relocate," I said.

The resulting surge of power came from three emeralds: my orange, and the light and dark blues, all of which resided inside of Nox's body. It stunned me. We teleported all right, landing on the beach at Rio del Fuego, where I discovered that I had landed on my back with all my fur standing up. I scrambled to my feet, trying to ignore the snickers of the Chaotix. In the background, I sensed Mekion recording what had happened.

"Thanks Shadow, and Mekion," said Vector. "We'll be in touch."

"Like heck you will," I growled under my breath as the four hurried away toward a nearby street. "You only needed my taxi services."

The skyline of the city was familiar. I had walked its streets barely a year ago, and then, too, I had battled Mekion. I didn't know if it was worse now or not.

Rio del Fuego's energy shield was active. The sun shone on it, reflecting and shimmering like water on the vast bubble enclosing the city. As I gazed at it, I saw several black hawks wheel overhead. Then I noticed the blackened craters along the edges of the shield, where the pavement was unprotected. Rio del Fuego had repelled the invaders so far. I had a feeling that they wouldn't last much longer.

Nox, too, watched the shield and aliens. "Rememeber running around with Rouge? She never let me blow stuff up like I wanted."

"I remember," I said. So did Mekion. He looked thoughtful. "Rouge still owns the red Chaos Emerald."

"Yes, I traded her for the orange one," I said. "Why?"

Mekion grinned nastily, which was odd, because in my mind's eye, his whole face was metal. "She will give us her emerald or die." His metal hand flexed.

"Like you even know where she is," I sneered.

Mekion's hand grabbed Nox's neck, fingers digging under the feathers and gripping the skin. "Ouch!" cried Nox, dancing in place with pain. Mekion took no notice. "Chaos Sight," he snarled.

To my horror, a triple-powered Chaos-induced vision blasted into my consciousness. I saw rapid snapshots of things in the past, present and future, jumbled and random as TV channels. I saw Sonic watching a red sunset. I saw Metal Sonic on the Annihilator, bleeding and begging for death. I saw a vast army of Mobians in gleaming armor. I saw the ARK crash into the atmosphere in a giant fireball. I saw an alien crumple and die as Rouge put a bullet through its left eye.

"Target acquired," said Mekion. The power ceased, and he played the captured video footage of Rouge.

"How did you do that?" I panted.

I sensed his grin. "I channeled the power through your body and directed it into my processors. What you see, I see."

"So?" I said, feeling goosebumps rise under my fur. "It doesn't show where Rouge is."

"No," said Mekion. "But you can envision her and therefore take us to her."

I folded my arm across my chest, which felt strange, because Mekion's arm remained at my side. "Make me."

"So I shall, robot," said Mekion, eyes glimmering orange. "We be of one blood, ye and I."

The beach vanished. I fell through black space and landed in a cryo pod. The GUN cryo pod on Prison Island. It was a metal coffin that stood on end, the lid hanging open. I plunged in, and the lid began to swing shut, like the jaw of some monster. I tried to scramble out, but my hands and feet were tied. "Mekion!" I yelled. "stop it!

I heard him laugh somewhere behind me. "Get yourself out, Shadow. Go on. Chaos relocate."

"I'm not that gullible," I snarled, watching the lid close. "This is just a virtual construct."

The pod vanished. I again stood on the beach with one hand gripping Nox's neck. His hooked beak was inches from my nose. "Could you let go now?"

I released him, and he shook himself until every feather rattled. "It's weird when you channel energy through me like that. How come Mekion's so mad at you?"

"He can't control me as easily as he would like," I said, smirking. "Did I hurt you?"

"You just pinched," said Nox.

I felt a ripple of static electricity, and turned. Doom and the Eye floated just where the ocean lapped the sand, looking as if they had just risen from the depths. But they floated in the air, rather than the water.

Doom lifted a hand. "So, you do remember what the humans did to you, Shadow."

"What, the cryogenic chamber?" I asked.

"Yes," said Doom. He swept an arm in the direction of Rio del Fuego. "These people would return you to stasis in the blink of an eye. Why do you bother helping them?"

"They haven't done anything wrong," I replied. "Besides, GUN is up in Sapphire City."

Doom and his Eye stared at me. "You, Shadow, are hardly a judge of wrongdoing."

"What's that supposed to mean?" I snapped.

Doom looked off at the city as the Eye continued to watch me. "All of them have committed wrongs. They do not deserve life, let alone your allegiance."

"And you're an angel from heaven," I said.

For an alien with hardly any face, Doom managed to look annoyed. "You mock what you do not understand, Shadow. We are the superior race. Join our cause. The reward will be beyond your wildest dreams."

"I'll think about it," I said.

Doom regarded Nox. "There are four Chaos Emeralds remaining, Shadow. Continuing to store them within this creature will not keep them hidden from me."

"I wasn't hiding them," I said. I added weakly, "And they're not for you."

"Your counterpart says otherwise," said Doom. "Continue the search. And reconsider your allegiances. If you are on the wrong side during the prosperity ritual, I cannot guarantee any further leniency."

"What's a prosperity-" I began, but he and the Eye were already gone.

I related this conversation to Nox, whose crest flattened in anger. "Evil alien. He wants you to kill everybody!"

"Sounds like it," I agreed. "I wonder what this prosperity ritual thing is."

But I had no leisure to wonder any longer. One of the circling black hawks dove out of the sky toward us, and its rider fired two grub-missiles. I grabbed Nox's neck, intending to teleport out of the way. But instead of saying 'Chaos Control', my lips said 'Chaos Relocate'.

Mekion had set up an artificial destination for the teleport. The world blinked to nothing, and I felt as if I were being twisted in half. Chaos relocate wasn't supposed to do this!

Then we crashed to earth in the midst of green moss and vines. I landed on all fours in a puddle of muddy water, and Nox nearly fell on me, saving himself by stepping on three of my fingers. I yelled several choice profanities at Mekion. He looked so smug that I wished I could punch him.

I climbed to my feet, nursing my smashed fingers and dripping wet, and looked around. It was a hot tropical jungle, all leafy trees, hanging vines and moss, and plants with gigantic leaves. The humidity made me feel like I had stepped into a shower-a shower filled with mud and insects.

Except that something was wrong with this jungle.

Chapter 7: One by one they fall

Chapter Text

"Shadow," said Nox in a small voice, "what's that?"

Ten feet away from us, a colony of red globes sprouted from the forest floor. Their vein-like roots gripped the soil beneath them, and from time to time, each of them flickered with purplish light. Black tendrils spiraled up the trees, withering the leaves and peeling away bark. It looked like a festering infection of the jungle, and stank like sewer.

"Looks like that stuff on the hidden alien ship," I said.

Mekion's eye zoomed in and traced a globe in green lines. "Yes," he said. "It appears to be a terraforming attempt."

I turned my head toward him. "Terraforming?"

"Yes," he snapped. "Terraform. Verb. To make a world more like a race's home planet."

"I know what it means," I snapped back. "Why would they want to terraform Mobius?"

"Maybe they want to live here," said Nox.

Mekion and I looked at him. For such a large, savage bird, Nox looked remarkably like a small, frightened chao. "Maybe they want to live here and kill everyone else."

I looked at the pod-things. "Well, they'll find that they're mistaken." I dove into a spun and smashed through the middle of them. They splattered like ripe fruit. Mekion made no move to stop me, which I found odd. But I didn't question him on it. Hey, if he let me do what I wanted, I wasn't going to push my luck by asking him why.

Once all the pods were reduced to ew, Nox and I set off through the jungle, looking for more. And Rouge. Neither were hard to locate.

The jungle was full of terraforming growths. I wondered where we were, exactly. Somewhere in South Mobius? These aliens were hitting the whole planet. I wondered if my teleport could have taken me that far, then recalled the power of a three-emerald teleport. I might be anywhere. Only Mekion knew. It freaked me out that he could control power through me like that. When would it end? When he was in complete control of my every action?

I smashed every alien growth in our path, and Nox helped by trampling them underfoot. After one large patch of alien infection, I paused to wipe slime off my face, and heard gunshots in the distance. I glanced at Mekion, who nodded. Rouge.

We hurried in that direction. The nearer we got, the slower we moved, slipping from tree to tree. I could hear conventional gunshots, as well as the shriek of plasma fire. I remembered my chaos vision of Rouge felling aliens, and figured that she was holding her own.

Well, Rouge had been holding her own, but it was a good thing that I showed up when I did. The battle was taking place in a wide clearing that the terraforming-stuff had made. Fallen trees made a natural wall at the far end, and they were choked with the black tendrils. Rouge crouched atop these fallen trees, wings folded tightly to her back, reloading a shotgun. Thirty-odd black aliens ringed the trees, crouched behind branches and roots for cover. A black hawk sat in a treetop nearby, waiting for Rouge to try to fly away. She was in trouble, all right.

"Nox, hang back," I whispered. Then I ran into the open, stuck two fingers in my mouth and whistled.

Rouge's head jerked up, and a smile of genuine relief broke across her face. The aliens were not quite so glad to see me. Their red eyes glittered, and they spun and fired at me. It seemed that I was still galactic enemy number one.

Nox had my Chaos Emeralds, so without the option to teleport, I resorted to some fancy footwork. I'm very good at fancy footwork. I dodged the plasma bolts, then felled two warriors with a deadly spindash. The shotgun roared, and another alien fell ten feet away from me with a hole through its torso. Silently congratulating Rouge on a nice shot, I ducked under the twisted branches and blind sided another warrior. "Rouge!" I yelled. "Shoot the hawk!"

"I have!" I heard her yell back. "It ate my shells!"

I thought of the way the hawks ate the powder from their own missiles. What did I know of how their bodies worked?

I grabbed up a plasma pistol in either hand, and with their assistance, I took out the rest of the alien squadron. Then I aimed half a dozen plasma bolts at the hawk. It screamed and took off, but I blew holes in its wing membranes, and it plunged from sight with a scream.

There was a sudden silence. I blew away the smoke billowing from the muzzles of my pistols, and surveyed the damage. Several trees were burning, but they were green, and the fire was already dying out. Rouge jumped off the tree-pile and glided down to me. She landed and slung her shotgun across her back on a strap. "Thanks," she said, smiling. "Always showing up in the oddest places, aren't you, Shadow?"

I shrugged. "I just don't like the Black Arms."

She looked me over with that down-up flick of her eyes, which she used when inspecting attractive males. I might have been flattered, had I not seen her checking out every other male we had ever encountered. "So," she said, looking at my alien pendant, "what brings you to this neck of the woods?"

In my mind's eye, Mekion appeared to my left; a fully three-dimensional robot hedgehog with glowing red eyes and matte-black metal. He pointed at an emerald-shaped bulge in Rouge's pants pocket. "I know," I thought.

Aloud, to Rouge, I said, "I could ask you the same question. How'd you get mixed up with the Black Arms?"

"It's an invasion," Rouge said acidly. "Everyone is mixed up with them. Including you, I hear." Her eyes rested on my pendant again.

"This is Mekion's," I said, flicking it with a living finger. "I'm trying to find out what the Black Arms are after. And I need your Chaos Emerald."

Rouge's hand dropped to cover the bulge in her pocket. "Why?" she said, raising an eyebrow.

I looked over my shoulder and whistled softly, and Nox hurried up out of the trees.

Rouge took a step backwards and stared up at him. "Is that Nox?"

"Nox three," I said. "Soon to be four. He's my weapon against the Black Arms."

In my head, visible through my left eye, Mekion laughed and said, "You're a terrible liar."

Nox tried to look as if this story was not new to him. But, most surprising of all, Rouge bought it.

She studied Nox and slowly nodded. "I see how that works. You're quite powerful as a phoenix, aren't you?"

"Yes ma'am," said Nox. "And with all seven emeralds, I can stay a phoenix forever, too." He cast me a sidelong look, checking to see if I approved of this story. I let myself feel a strong surge of satisfaction, which he picked up.

Rouge slowly reached into her pocket. "Well, you can have it temporarily ... I'm in the middle of a project with it. I want it back when you're through."

"Certainly," I said, and wondered why Doom wanted all seven emeralds. Would I ever have the chance to return this one? But no, I wasn't going to give him the emeralds, was I?

She pulled out the red emerald, which glittered scarlet, the color of blood. I broke into a sweat at the sight of it. As I had discovered through painful experience, using the red Chaos Emerald burned my brain causing acute memory loss. I felt ill just remembering it.

I took it quickly and tossed it to Nox, who caught it in his mouth. His body melted and changed. He reformed into an even bigger variation of his ostrich form, but this time with wicked-looking spurs on the insides of his legs. "Wow," he said, examining them. He was now well over eleven feet tall, and his tailfeathers had developed two long plumes.

Rouge nodded approvingly. "You definitely could take on the Black Arms now." She looked at me. "Did you know that GUN has given orders to execute you on sight?"

Mekion and I stared at her. Then Mekion clenched his fists and snarled, "I knew it!"

I spoke over him to Rouge. "Why would they do that?"

She shrugged and looked at my pendant. "They say that you're working for Doom."

I looked at Mekion. "That's not true."

He laughed at me. "Oh, isn't it?"

"The order was given by the GUN commander, General Striver. You know him?"

Mekion ran a database check and came up with the man's credentials. "Not personally, no."

"He sure seems to know you. He has this obsession with killing you."

I shrugged. "I probably escaped Prison Island on his watch or something."

Rouge eyed me. "Just be careful. I saw the aliens attack you, so I know that you're not on their side. But the humans aren't on your side, either."

Thank you, hostile alien forces. Talk about a great cover-up. No, no! What was I thinking? I glared at Mekion. He folded his arms and ignored me.

"Yeah, yeah," I said vaguely. "Thanks for the emerald, Rouge. I gotta get out of here."

"So long, Shadow," said Rouge, batting her eyelashes. "Don't stay away too long."

I grabbed Nox's leg-he was too tall for me to reach his neck-and said, "Chaos relocate."

I stand before a great, gray cliff wall. Etched on it in letters five feet tall are the Three Laws. I must not allow harm to befall Metal Sonic ... I must obey Metal Sonic ... I may defend myself. I have crossed out the name 'Metal Sonic' with red spraypaint and tried to write in 'Mekion', but the letters are engraved so deeply that it makes little difference.

At the foot of the cliff lie the twisted wreckage of Dr. Robotnik's alteration code. They were once neon signs that said 'Dr. Robotnik', and they hung in front of the words 'Metal Sonic'. But Mecha himself logged in while I was disabled and tore them down.

I attack the stone, sprouting the claws and fangs that Doom gave me, and try to break the words or mar the stone. But when I step back to observe my progress, I have not even chipped the rock.

Next I scoop up junk code in both hands and try to pack it into the letters, to fill them in and cover them over. But the code does not stick. It falls out again, leaving the Laws as clear as ever.

I claw at the stone with my claws, trying to scratch additions onto the laws, but the wall is impenetrable. It merely blunts my claws.

As I try in vain to think of some other way to remove the laws, I sense Shadow approaching. I spin and snarl at him. Undaunted, he moves up to stand beside me. He stares at the laws with his mouth open. "They're still here!"

"Of course they are," I snap. "I could not operate if they were not." I point upward. On top of the cliff, the rest of my operating system is visible as a castle with turrets. This wall is its foundation.

Shadow looks at me in disgust. "So you would rather destroy yourself than serve Metal Sonic again?"

"I have not yet come to that," I reply. "I believe that I can alter these ... somehow."

To my disgust, Shadow looks at the Laws again with a grin. "I didn't know they were recorded that deeply into you, Mekion. You still have to obey him. It says it right here."

"No I don't!" I scream. "Get out of here!" I grab him and throw him backwards-

I awoke and lay blinking in the darkness. It was nearly 2 AM. How had I dreamed that? Except that it wasn't a dream ... somehow my subconscious had entered Mekion at his deepest level and seen him trying to alter his own programming. And he couldn't do it. It gave me a warm feeling of glee. As powerful as Mekion was, Metal Sonic was still the more cunning programmer.

I stretched. I had decided the spend the night in the one place in the world where I still felt safe: Mecha's home base. But Mecha was not here, so I had the whole base to myself. Nox was curled up beside me, snoring softly, and our four Chaos Emeralds lay on a shelf overhead.

The base was silent. Such a welcome change from the frantic pace of the previous day ... Also, it was wonderful to sleep in my own bed after living in Nick's apartment for so long. I wished that I might see Mecha and inform him that the laws were still intact, but I had no idea where he was, and Mekion wouldn't let me contact him. But it was a comfort to be home for the night.

I dozed off, lulled by Nox's breathing.

I awoke at six to the electric sensation of a chaos aura surge. I opened my eye, but otherwise didn't move. That had either been a chaos control, or Doom had portaled right into the base.

Mekion hesitantly scanned the area. He wanted it to be Doom, and I wanted it to be Mecha. Beside me, Nox sat up, eyes wide. "What was that?" he breathed.

"Hush," I whispered. "I can't tell."

Then I heard footsteps and knew it was Mecha. Doom did not touch the ground when he moved. Mecha was limping. I wondered what had happened to him. He limped up the hall, past my door, headed for his own quarters. I waited, wondering if he would check the network at all.

The footsteps stopped. For a long moment there was silence. Then they hurried back, and Mecha threw my door open. "Shadow," he said, and I was taken aback to hear the alarm in his voice. "What are you doing here?"

I sat up slowly. "I used to live here. I needed somewhere to spend the night."

He stared at me for a moment. His eyes moved upward to the four Chaos Emeralds on the shelf. "Are you working for Doom?" His voice sounded tired and defeated.

"No!" I exclaimed. "I have to ... have all seven ... to defeat him!" It wasn't quite a lie, but I hadn't thought of it until that minute. The worst part was, I could tell from Mecha's face that he saw through me.

He entered the room at last and sat on the bunk opposite mine, the one that he had occupied while I was rebuilding him. "Shadow," he said quietly, "there are things that you must know."

Mekion and I waited. Nox sat beside me, and Mecha gazed at him sadly. Aleda was still missing, I realized. "Where's Aleda?" I blurted.

"Safe," said Mecha quietly. "Shadow, the Black Arms have overrun all the major population centers. They have ceased negotiations with all political leaders, and are now seeking to eradicate them."

I looked at that scar down his leg and finally realized what it was. His skin had been melted in one long, savage cut from an alien.

He went on, "They have destroyed major roads and military bases from orbit. If they are allowed to control the Chaos Emeralds, they can bring this planet to its knees. I trust that you have observed the way that Black Doom manipulates chaos?"

I nodded, although I hadn't realized that that was what he was doing.

Mecha's head hung for a moment, and he looked as whipped as when Sonic had defeated him for the last time. "The only solution that I can see," he said, "is for either you or Sss ... the hedgehog to use the Chaos Emeralds to destroy their mothership."

"Did you know that Dr. Robotnik is repairing the ARK?" I said suddenly.

We stared at each other in silence as the same idea occurred to us both. Mecha rose and ran a finger over the Chaos Emeralds. "Three emeralds left. Do you know where they are?"

I shook my head, even though I did.

He held up three fingers. "The white is in possession of the mithril dragon Drasyre. The green is owned by the Hedgehog. And the violet one is ... mine."

Wow. I had to rob all three of them. It would be easier to blast the Eye in its eye, I thought. But Mecha said, "When you have acquired the other two, I will give you mine. But you must not let them fall into enemy hands."

I nodded. "Never. Thank you, Mecha."

He rose to his feet, favoring his injured leg. He moved to the door and hesitated, looking over his shoulder at me. "So much is at stake, and I can do next to nothing. If you need help, do not hesitate to ask." He raised his arm-the one branded with a white, pearlescent rune. "This enables me to use chaos energy like a Mobian. I believe that I even know how to restrain Mekion temporarily."

"He still has the three laws," I said. "I saw them."

For the first time in a very long time, I saw Mecha smile. "That is good news."

He moved to leave the room, and I stood up hurriedly. "I'll save Mobius, Mecha. Black Doom's still not as good at chaos as I am."

Mecha's eyes smirked, although his mouth did not move. "I know." And he walked out.

Agreeing with Mekion is probably not a good thing. But we agreed that the dragon would likely be the most difficult emerald to obtain, so we would go after it first.

A look into the orange Chaos Emerald with Chaos Sight showed me a giant silver dragon and a green hedgehog. They were standing on the edge of a cliff with rain pouring down on them, facing off against a squad of Black Oaks.

As I looked away from the emerald and rubbed my eyes, Nox said, "Are we going into a battle, Shadow?"

"Yes," I said, handing him the four Chaos Emeralds. "In the rain."

Nox expanded into his giant-bird form and stood with his neck curled down toward the floor, because he was almost too big for the room. "I hate rain," he grunted. "Let's go before my neck cramps."

I was braced for the power of the teleport this time; it was like riding the shockwave of an explosion. I managed to land on my feet, and so did Nox, but he still staggered and careened into a tree before regaining his balance. It was raining, all right-water pouring down in torrents. It was freezing cold, and I felt Mekion chill at once, making me shiver. Nox pulled in his feathers tightly, and water streamed off his back.

We had landed up the hill from the skirmish. We were up in the mountains somewhere, and below us, beyond the cliff, was a deep valley. Drasyre, the dragon, and the green hedgehog Spark were perched on the cliff's edge, snarling at the troop of Black Oaks. The Oaks carried weapons that I had not seen before-some kind of shoulder-mounted thing.

"Why doesn't the dragon just fly?" Nox asked.

I pointed. "His wing's hurt."

Why did I have to rescue everybody? I didn't mind fighting the Black Arms, but saving people does get tiring. Especially if I have to rob them afterwards.

Mekion appeared to my left, arms folded. "Let the aliens handle them, then we'll steal the emerald once they're dead."

It sounded like a good idea, but my conscience objected. I had seen Spark and Drasyre earlier in the year. They were both honorable and friendly, people whom I would like to spend time with, provided they could bear a murderous disfigured hedgehog.

Mekion watched me. "I know what you're thinking," he growled. "You're talking yourself into rescuing them. Well, guess what-"

I interrupted him by flinging myself into a spindash down the hill. He yelled in my head, but I ignored him and concentrated on aiming myself at the back of the nearest Oak's leg. As I struck it and felt my spines slice through the skin to the molten heat beneath, Mekion said, "Fine. But you'll pay for this."

There was no time to worry about his threats-the Black Oaks were carrying rocket launchers. They fired at me, Nox, Drasyre and Spark, and everything dissolved into pandemonium. I flashed here and there, injuring their legs, while Nox, taking advantage of his new height, slashed at their eyes with his killer beak.

We avoided the rockets, and I guess Spark and Drasyre did, too. Suddenly Spark was there among the aliens with me, helping to hamstring the enemy. His spindashes didn't do quite as much damage as mine did, but they definitely hurt.

Then Drasyre charged, and the fight was as good as over. Three times the size of a Black Oak, he grabbed one in each forepaw, spun around and hurled them off the cliff. This he did with the rest, until all nine aliens had fallen roaring into the depths, leaving us panting and wiping the rain and mud out of our eyes.

"Thanks," said Spark, stepping up to me and extending a hand. I shook it. His left arm, like mine, was mechanical-he left it at his side.

"No problem," I replied. "Do you happen to have a Chaos Emerald?"

Spark's smile faded, and he looked up at the dragon. Drasyre glared down at me. "Why do you ask?"

I pointed at Nox, who was cleaning his beak on a rock. "Every emerald I give him, he grows bigger. We're trying to defeat the Black Arms."

"That's what they're called?" said Spark, looking around at the deep footprints in the mud around us. "Let me guess. Space aliens."

"Yes," I said. "They're trying to conquer Mobius, and without the emeralds, none of us stands a chance."

Drasyre stared at me. "I passed through blood and suffering for this emerald. I'm not giving it up so easily."

"I'll return it after we're through saving the world," I said sarcastically. "Come follow me around, if you want, but I have to have it."

Bad suggestion. Drasyre perked up. "Yes, you may use it if I escort you."

I stared up at him, aghast. What was I supposed to do with a two-story dragon following me around? Mekion roared with laughter.

Spark reached into the backpack he wore, and pulled out the glittering white emerald. I took it and felt its quiet, steady power. Almost as compliant as the green.

Spark climbed up on Drasyre's back, and Nox approached, looking expectant. I shook my head at him. I needed this emerald. I looked into it and triggered another chaos vision. I needed to find Sonic.

Visions came bright and clear-Mecha standing beside a small blue dragon-a giant thing like a tangle of roots floating above Mobius (the Black Comet?)-a group of humans, smoke-stained and exhausted, being herded into a gutted building by a bunch of aliens-a hover transport with a man in a suit boarding it-Sonic standing with the green emerald in one hand watching the sky-

I tore myself away from the emerald. I placed one hand on Nox's wing, the other on Drasyre's foreleg, and said, "Chaos relocate."

Chapter 8: ...and I loved you

Chapter Text

We appeared in a war-torn city that was not Sapphire City. The air felt different-drier-the architecture was different-what was left of it-and shattered trees lay everywhere.

Sonic stood ten feet away, gaping at us. "What in the world are you guys doing here?" He nodded at Spark in greeting, and Spark nodded back. They were brothers, I remembered.

"I've come for your Chaos Emerald," I said. No point in beating around the bush.

Sonic actually laughed. "Shads, you crack me up. No way, I need this thing."

"So do I," I said. "To stop the Black Arms."

"Sure," said Sonic, "as long as Mekion's not driving, right? Anyway, I'm supposed to escort the human President to his escape craft. There's a whole platoon of Black Arms in the way."

"I'll help out," I offered. "I just saved them." I jerked a thumb at Drasyre and Spark.

Sonic nodded. To the dragon he said, "How good are you at killing aliens?"

Drasyre co*cked his head. "So-so. They're immune to fire, and I've been reduced to contact-only."

"Yeah, us too," said Sonic.

I looked at him, wondering who 'us' was.

Just then a Mobian hovercraft flew by, keeping low to the ground and swerving around wreckage in the road. "Here we go," said Sonic. He ran after the craft, and Nox and I followed.

Everything was fine until we ran into the first Black Warriors. Sonic and I took them out fairly easily, with Nox covering out backs. (He was freaking strong! Sometimes it scared me, especially when he accidently ripped an alien's leg off and squawked in dismay as lava spewed everywhere.)

Then Mekion sidled into view, always a bad sign. "Remember when I said that you would pay for ignoring my advice?" He stepped to one side, and in his place stood Black Doom.

I skidded to a halt-Nox, Sonic and the President's ship went on-and stared. "Wait-are you real? Or are you in my head?"

"It does not matter," said Doom, waving a clawed hand and making his necklaces clank. "What matters is that you insist on helping the humans and their allies. It is time that I remind you just what the humans did to you." He floated forward and laid a hand on my living shoulder.

The city boiled away in clouds, revealing the inky, star-spangled expanse of space. We floated in nothing, yet I could breathe, so it must only be a virtual construct. Slick.

"Look," said Doom.

I turned and saw the ARK, hanging like an asteroid above the blue of Mobius, the layers of windows glowing in yellow bands across its surface.

We floated closer. Doom pointed to a certain level. "Look, Shadow. Remember." I looked, and my heart froze. It was Maria.

Suddenly I was in the ARK beside her. We were in her room, and the lockdown alert had just gone off. I looked around wildly. How was this happening? It felt like I was really here! There was even the stain on the wall where I had experimented with permanent markers when I was three. I touched the wall, felt the smooth steel. But I still had my half-metal body. Was I back in time somehow? But no, it must be a virtual construct. A very convincing one.

I turned to Maria. She looked even younger than I remembered, barely twelve, pale and thin, with long blonde hair, held back by a blue bow. She stared at me. "Shadow! What happened to you?" She reached out and touched the metal half of my face.

"Oh, uh," I said, embarrassed. I hadn't expected a virtual Maria to notice something like that. "It's part of a new experiment."

Maria frowned. "Well, I don't like it! They do enough tests on you as it is ..."

There was an awkward silence. This simulation was freaking me out. It felt so real.

Maria looked up at the red light on the wall. "Why do you think they locked us down?"

I thought back to that day. The military had come to shut us down ... but only because the experiments had gotten out of control, and we called for aid. My fur bristled. The experiments. Not just the Biolizard. The others.

"It's the artificial chaos creatures," I said. "They've escaped."

It is a construct, but a very powerful one. I regard Doom, who stands, not on the street, but inside my operating system as a transmission holograph. "Maintain the illusion until he remembers," Doom instructs me. "And destroy the transport. It contains one of the human leaders who rejected our proposal."

"With pleasure," I reply.

Shadow is just standing there, staring into space, for his mind is captured. It is simple to take control and send us skating up the street, scooping up one of the alien weapons as we go.

Maria and I planned to stay in the room and keep the door locked, but our minds were changed for us. I planned to simply enjoy Maria's company again (gosh, she understood me so well! I miss that) and we were just beginning a happy conversation about shooting practice, when something hit the door.

We froze and stared at it. Again, another heavy thud. Then a thin trickle of water welled through the crack under the door.

"It's one of them," I whispered. "Maria, get over there in the corner." I didn't remember this happening. But then, I had blocked a lot of memories from that day. She jumped off the bed and pressed herself into the corner. I stood to one side and opened the door.

It slid open, and one of the artificial chaos creatures floated inside. About five feet tall, they consisted of a robotic head with huge, evil green eyes, and a spine that extended down into a four-foot globe of water, held in a jellified state by the current emitted from the spine.

It turned to look at me, but I was already gone. I leaped, curled into a ball, bounced off the ceiling and struck the thing's head. My metal spines split the head, shattering the eyes. The water crashed to the floor, lapping Maria's shoes, and the head hit the floor in pieces.

I held out my good hand to Maria. "Come on, we have to get out of here."

Maria stepped daintily toward me, through the water, staring at the head. "Its eyes look so sad, Shadow."

They looked soulless and evil to me, but I didn't say anything. I took her hand and we entered the hallway.

"Where are we going?" she asked.

I opened my mouth to say the shuttle bay, but checked myself. We must not go near there. "My training room," I said instead. "We can block the entrances. They'll never look for us there."

Hand in hand, we dashed down the hall.

How amusing. When Shadow moves in the simulation, he tries to move in real life. It must be very realistic. His attack jump was not near enough to anything to do any harm, but I have plans for the next few attacks he tries.

We are catching up to Sonic, Nox and the President's ship. Spark and Drasyre are far behind, but jogging determinedly in our wake. Right now, the ship is the target. I wait until more alien soldiers engage Sonic and Nox, then fire at the ship until the power cell in the gun is dead. The ship has substantial shielding, but the burning plasma does a lot of damage to it. Sonic and Nox think the aliens are firing. I grin with Shadow's mouth. This is far too amusing.

I pushed open the laboratory door and peered inside. I was thinking of cutting through it as a shortcut, but not if it put Maria in danger. The lab was a disaster; tables upended, equipment smashed, water and chemicals flooding the floor. It was strange to have her there-only a head taller than me, but so much deeper mentally. I had forgotten that her disease was in remission, and she was already far stronger than she had ever been. "Why does she have to die?" I thought bitterly.

"What happened here?" she whispered. "Where are the scientists?"

"I don't know," I replied. "C'mon, it looks empty." I would have used Mekion's scanner, but I was completely locked out.

We ventured inside and hurried through, skirting collapsed tables and broken equipment. Maria paused beside a toppled refrigerator case, where green canisters had rolled every which way. She picked up several and put them in her skirt pockets. "Healing capsules," she said, in response to my raised eyebrow. "In case we meet someone who's injured."

I smiled at her. "You're so kind."

She smiled back. "I'm just scared to death."

We left the lab behind and entered the fifth circle. The ARK was laid out like an onion, with each floor forming concentric rings around the core, which is where the control rooms are. Twelveth circle is the outside edge, and first circle is the core. My training rooms were at the bottom level, which amounted to first circle, sub-basem*nt five.

My training room was also where Sonic and I had fought the Biolizard. I wondered if it was loose down there. I stopped with a hand on a stairway railing, listening. Far, far down the stairwell, half a mile below our feet, there were screams, gunshots, and-yes-a wet hissing sound.

I shuddered so violently that my knees buckled. Maria caught my arm. "Shadow, what's wrong?"

"We can't go to the training room," I said, panic racing up my spine in hot waves. "The Biolizard is loose."

"The-the what?" Her blue eyes widened, picking up my fear.

I grabbed her hand and darted up the stairs instead, cutting up to level eight and across to third circle. "We'll hit the armory instead."

"What's a Biolizard?" Maria asked, her words coming in jerky breaths as we ran.

"I'm the ultimate lifeform," I said, "and the Biolizard is the prototype of the ultimate lifeform. I think it let the artificial chaos free."

I slowed to a walk and looked at her. She was flushed a healthy pink from the exercise, and she was smiling with her lips pursed, a look I remembered well. "Ultimate lifeform," she said. "Well, if that's what the Biolizard is, then we have nothing to worry about." She never bought all of that immortality stuff. I grinned. It was our long-standing argument, and boy, it sure felt good to have it again.

We turned a corner and walked right into an artificial chaos. It floated in the middle of the corridor, gazing at its reflection in an office window, not paying attention to us at all. It was dead before it turned around.

"Shadow!" Maria cried, too late. "It wasn't doing any harm!"

"It would have," I said grimly, shaking water off my skates. "C'mon, we're almost there."

In the armory we found half a dozen scientists, three of them sporting horrendous wounds from the chaos creatures. They saw us coming on the video cameras, and met us at the doors. "Thank goodness you're safe!" exclaimed a technician named Richard, flinging his arms around us. "Gerald keeps calling from the control room, trying to find you."

Maria's eyes fell on the wounded men, and dug into her pockets. "Here," she said, pulling out three capsules. "I thought that these would come in handy."

They thanked her profusely, and I watched as they sprayed the foam from the capsules on the wounds. They would be healed in an hour.

I walked up to one of the older scientists, a gray-haired human named Chance. "What happened, anyway?" I asked.

He pushed his glasses up his nose. He was working on a half-assembled chaingun, and from the amount of grease on his hands and the way the parts were scattered around, I guessed that he was much more familiar with amino acids.

"We're not sure," he said. "The artificial chaos creatures just seemed to ... wake up. And they went nuts. We couldn't contain them, and they completely trashed the holding station where we kept them. They're all over the ARK by now."

"How many are there?" I asked.

"Twenty-five," said Chance.

"Twenty-three, now," I said. "I destroyed two. What about the Biolizard?"

Chance's face hardened. "No one is supposed to know about the prototype. How do you know about it?"

"Because this isn't real and I'm from the future," I said glibly. "I'll just assume that it's not going to attack the rest of the station. I can handle the artificial chaos."

Chance stared at me, but I turned away and walked back to Maria. She was studying a rack of pistols and their ammo clips.

"I'm going to destroy the chaos creatures," I told her. "You saw what they did to the scientists. There's twenty-three of them running around."

Maria didn't answer. Instead, she took my right hand and clasped it in both of hers. "They're intelligent, Shadow. They'll learn how to fight you."

"Not if I smash them first," I said.

Her hands moved to the golden bracer around my wrist. "Then take these off, at least." She unclasped the bracer and held it up.

My brain pretzeled.

Yes, I remembered her taking off my bracers; such an insignificant thing it seemed, in comparison to her death. But when my escape pod landed, the impact nearly killed me, and I woke up in the Prison Island medical ward with Gerald tending me. My bracers had reappeared on my wrists ... but they were new ones, wired into my flesh to ensure that I carried out Gerald's murderous last wishes.

I had forgotten all about my original bracers and why I wore them.

Maria removed both of them and put them in her dress pocket.

"What are you going to do with them?" I asked, trying to sound offhand.

"Oh," she said, "I was going to hide them somewhere where we could find them later."

"Like where?"

She looked around the armory, biting her lip. "I know." She walked over to a huge weapon rack that was built into the wall. She knelt and slid my bracers under it as far as she could reach. "There," she said. "All safe. Lead the way, Shadow."

"You're staying here," I said. I selected a rifle (a FAMAS) from the weapon rack and loaded it from the ammunition bin. I turned back to Maria, and saw that amused look on her face again. "What?"

She reached into her skirt pocket and pulled out a large pistol. A Desert Eagle, to be precise.

"No," I said.

Ever argue with a woman and win?

Me neither.

From the armory, we descended three floors and cut across the core to the north side of seventh circle, where the artificial chaos creatures had been made. The closer we came to their home, the more of them we encountered. After the first couple, I was glad for my rifle.

The chaos creatures had a nasty habit of sprouting two water-tentacles, which could stretch forty feet or more, and slam into me with enough force to crack bone. Fortunately, the first one to do this knocked me metal-first into the wall, which winded me, but didn't hurt too much. Maria knelt, took careful aim, and felled the chaos with a clean shot through the eye. The kickback knocked her flat, but I was impressed.

She tried disarming them or stunning them, but artificial chaos creatures didn't disarm or stun. She mourned each one that we destroyed. "I hate doing this, Shadow! They're self-aware, that's all. It's not a crime."

"Then why are they attacking us?" I panted, reloading my FAMAS.

"I don't know," she said sorrowfully, nudging the shattered remains of a chaos at our feet.

Things were going quite nicely, and we had dispatched eleven creatures, when I saw a black-suited GUN soldier dash into the hallway head of us. At the same time, the loudspeaker blared, "The space colony ARK is now under the jurisdiction of GUN. Please cooperate with the GUN personnel as we work to secure the station. Any resistance will be eliminated."

I swore.

All we could do was run. We saw the soldiers shoot random scientists and civilians, turning the shutdown into a bloodbath. This was why I had blocked these memories. I didn't want to relive this. Somewhere, Doom and Mekion were having a good laugh.

Well, Maria wasn't going down so easily this time. When we reached the shuttle bay, I stuck to her like glue, and was there when they sealed the doors. Last time it had locked me out. This time, when the soldiers came in shooting, I shot back, laughing. This wasn't what I remembered, but who cares? It felt good to take revenge, even in a virtual world.

But one soldier still got lucky. Hiding behind a metal beam, he ducked out and fired. He missed me, but Maria took the round in the chest. I suppose the construct had to end with her dying, but it was still horrible.

I caught her as she fell and sank to the floor with her. Her beautiful blue eyes searched my face, like a wounded bird hoping that its wings are not truly broken. I knew this was all virtual, but my eyes filled with tears just the same. "Shadow," she whispered, "save them. Give them a chance to be free." She drew a few short, painful breaths, then relaxed. Her eyes closed.

I looked up at the soldier who had killed her. He was standing with his gun trained on us, watching with hatred in his eyes. One eye was blue, the other brown. "I'll kill you for this," I whispered.

Suddenly I was floating in blackness, shooting up toward a distant surface. Mekion was laughing, coming closer and closer. I blinked. I was standing on an up-ended slab of asphalt, an alien gun in my hands that I had never seen before. I had it trained on Sonic and Nox, who were wreathed in a flaming aura.

Mekion's laughter was coming out of my mouth. I wrenched control away from him and dropped the weapon with a clatter. "Oh my gosh," I said. "Mekion, what have you done?"

"Oh, back are you?" he said in my head, sounding disappointed.

"Shadow?" said Sonic uncertainly.

Nox's crest lifted in recognition. "I feel him. It's Shadow! Why did you leave Mekion in control for so long?"

"I was on the ARK," I said vaguely. "What happened? Where's the President's ship?"

Nox bobbed his head, and the flaming aura vanished. I jumped off the slab of asphalt and walked up to him and Sonic. Sonic watched me as one might a cobra. "He escaped, no thanks to you. You had the shields down and half the armor blown off. When I tried to stop you, you chaos blasted the place to heck."

"It was Mekion, not me," I growled.

Sonic glared. "Well, whoever it was, they set off an alien detonator thing and blew up half the city. I hope you're happy, jerk. You killed about a thousand people."

"It was Mekion!" I yelled. "Stop blaming me!"

"I only see one black hedgehog standing here," snarled Sonic, jabbing a finger at my chest. "One monster resembles another."

"You want some, come get it," I snarled back, leaning into his face.

For a moment I thought he was going to take me up on my offer, but he mastered himself and stepped back. "No, you're not worth it. I'll save my energy for the aliens." Without another word he spun and ran off down the cratered street.

I turned to Nox entreatingly. "Did I really do all that?"

"Yes," he said, lowering his head. "Sonic would have died, but I protected him. You weren't yourself."

"Mekion and Doom put me into some virtual construct of the ARK," I said bitterly. "They made me relive Maria's death. At the same time, I guess Mekion went nuts."

"He did," said Nox. "It's a good thing I have five emeralds. My phoenix shield absorbed Mekion's chaos blast like it was nothing."

I looked up at Nox. Somewhere along the line he had taken the white emerald from me, because his wings had sprouted huge metal claws on the ends. He looked straight-up cool. I was too depressed to do more than run my living hand along his claws and sigh. Mekion, through me, had committed mass murder today. How did he keep working my chaos aura like that? I didn't know how to chaos blast. There had to be some way of restraining him ...

Then it dawned on me. I lifted my head and looked at Nox. "I know how to check Mekion's power."

He co*cked his head. "How?"

I laid a hand on his feathered chest. "Come on, we're going to the ARK."

Chapter 9: Crush them all

Chapter Text

When I had been working for Dr. Robotnik, helping to charge up the Eclipse Cannon in order to destroy Mobius, I had jumped from the planet, to the ARK, and back many times. The ARK is in geosynchronous orbit somewhere about twenty-two thousand miles above Mobius. That's quite a jump for Chaos Control, except that the chaos field extends far into space, beyond the moons, in fact. The higher you go, the less gravitational forces interfere with it, so the easier it is to teleport. Going back to Mobius is actually harder than leaving it.

At least, with one emerald, it is. With five, we had no trouble at all.

The ARK was cold, dark and abandoned, just like the last time I had been here. I knew that Robotnik was modifying the Eclipse Cannon for his own nefarious ends, but that had nothing to do with me. The cannon controls and machinery were all in the first circle levels, and I was only interested in third circle, level eight.

I skated down the halls with barely a sound. Nox trotted after me, neck curled in a U to avoid the ceiling, his claws clicking on the floor. There was so much dust on the floor that my skates flash-ignited it from time to time, leaving little smouldering dust bunnies in our wake.

The armory was so dark, when I pushed the door open, that I had Nox ignite his phoenix-shield. At once a bubble of fire whooshed into being around him, pushing back the darkness. The armory had been gutted by GUN, naturally, but it was still depressing to see it so. I paused beside an empty healing capsule on the floor. Maria's. I nearly stooped to pick it up, but stopped. What good would it do to carry about an empty fifty year old capsule? Get a grip, Shadow.

The weapons rack in the back had been nearly torn out of the wall. A few wall panels hung loose behind it, bolts protruding like blunt teeth. I dropped to all fours and peered beneath. At the very back, obscured by dust, was a gleam of gold.

I had to lay flat on the floor, and I could still barely reach the bracelets. But after a few minutes of groping in the dust, I fished them out and sat blowing them off, polishing them against my fur. Nox viewed them with disgust. "Why do you want those things? Last time they hurt you."

"No, those were Gerald's bracelets," I said. "These are mine. Maria took them off me before she died. I used to wear them to restrain my chaos powers." I chuckled. "There were a few times that they got out of hand, so the scientists in the chaos lab engineered these for me." I clipped them around my wrists and slid the locks down tight. "Funny," I said, "last time I wore bracelets, I was going to destroy the world. Now I'm wearing them again to save it."

"If Mekion doesn't make you destroy it anyway," Nox said. "He scares me, Shadow."

"He and Doom both scare me," I said. "Well well. Speak of the devil."

At that moment, Doom himself floated in through the armory door.

"Bravo, Shadow," he said, clapping his hands. "Bravo, Mekion. You surprise me with your resourcefulness."

"Yay me," I said flatly. "What are you doing here?"

"The ARK is in close proximity to the Black Comet," said Doom. "When I detected your presence here, I came to investigate. You possess five of the Chaos Emeralds."

"Yes," I said. "I know where the last two are, and I can get them easily."

"As can I," said Doom. "But you were charged to gather them for me, and you are accomplishing that mission. Come with me." He turned and floated out of the room. I beckoned to Nox and followed.

"You saw what happened that day on the ARK," said Doom as we moved. "But you still do not understand everything that was happening."

"I know most of it," I said.

Doom eyed me with those red, faceted eyes. "Do you know why the artificial chaos creatures suddenly achieved mass consciousness?"

I didn't answer.

"It was because the larvae embedded in their robotic brains had hatched," said Doom. "My larvae."

I still said nothing, but felt a twinge of revulsion.

"Fifty-three years ago," said Doom, "the Black Comet passed by your planet. We entered your solar system long before that. You see-"

Mekion's inner screen loaded a vivid, high-resolution image of a purple and red planet.

"Our homeworld," said Doom.

The image changed to show a huge asteroid, more of a planetoid a third of the size of the planet, crashing into its surface. The clouds were blasting away, the crust fractured with red magma. A third image showed the planet tearing itself into fragments with the force of its own rotation and gravity.

"My people escaped in various spacecraft," said Doom, a note of sadness in his voice. "The majority in the Black Comet. We have been looking for an inhabitable planet ever since."

"Wow," I said. "That's ... awful." The scope of the disaster, of seeing a whole world obliterated, was something I had never witnessed. Suddenly I felt sorry for Doom and the Arms. "But," I said, "we need our planet. We were here first."

"Yes," said Doom, "but our plight is desperate. We must find a new world soon. Your leaders' negotiations were unsatisfactory. And we have watched your world for many of its years. We saw the Chaos Wars and the arrival of the humans. We saw the rise and fall of the Crystal Dragons. We saw the Chronowar and the Division following the Golden Age. Our race is ancient, Shadow."

"Then pick a spot and live there," I said. "Plenty of Mobius is uninhabited."

Doom did not answer. We had arrived at the twelfth circle, with the windows looking out into space. Below was Mobius, blue and green, swirled with white clouds. I had seen it since I was born, and the sight was somehow comforting. But Doom was not interested in Mobius. He pointed at a great shape silhouetted against it. The Black Comet. It looked like it had in my vision: a squidlike thing made of stone or metal. It was at least as big as the ARK. Around it floated tiny spacecraft, like minnows around a whale, and there were flashes and flickers of light.

"GUN has finally arrived to give battle," said Doom. "I expected them much earlier."

I gazed out at the ship without a word. GUN ought to be good at wiping out people on space stations. I sensed Mekion hovering at the fringes of my consciousness, listening and watching. I was being set up, somehow.

When I gave no indication of caring, Doom said, "The man who killed Maria. You remember him clearly."

I nodded.

Doom motioned to me, and Mekion loaded a snapshot of him. I shrugged. "So what?"

"Private Striver is now a general," said Doom. "He serves as an advisor to the human president, and has a particular vendetta against you."

Mekion pulled up another image. A gray-haired man in his late sixties, one eye blue, the other brown. I felt a twist in the pit of my stomach. He still lived ...

"From what I have learned on the information networks," said Doom, "Striver never overcame the guilt of taking the life of a young girl. He erased all data connecting him to the incident, and everyone who knew about it disappeared. Everyone but you." Doom paused to let this sink in.

It did. I felt that old thirst for revenge ignite inside of me. Mekion kept the images open as if to reinforce it.

"General Striver is leading the assault on my people," said Doom. "Remember what he and his kind did to you, Shadow. They have never done you any good. Assist me, and I will give you the tools to destroy them."

"What tools?" I asked.

Doom gazed at me for a moment. Then he laughed. A terrifying, deep roar of a laugh. "Come with me, Shadow, and we shall equip you for revenge."

Being outfitted by Doom was not as awesome as I had thought, though.

First, he summoned the Eye and teleported Nox and me to the Black Comet. We beamed down in a dark purple room lit by red bulbous red growths on the walls. Here and there stood some kind of pod that I didn't look at too closely. I don't like stasis chambers, and alien ones are too much for my stomach to handle. The air was heavy and thick, and made my eyes smart. It tasted smoky on the back of my tongue.

Doom floated away down the length of the room, leaving the Eye to watch us. Nox bent his knees and tried to hide behind me, which didn't accomplish much, seeing as he was eleven feet tall by this point. "This place is evil," he whimpered. "Feel it? It's like the Biolizard times a million!"

I listened. Well, it wasn't really listening ... it was like feeling the aura of the place, letting my senses, as well as my spirit, clue me in.

The malevolence struck me like a bowling ball to the head. When the Biolizard had been in hibernation on the ARK, everyone who set foot on the ARK knew that it was there. Except me, because I wanted the same things that it did. When I started trying to save the world rather than destroy it, I had felt the presence of its hatred and evil.

Now, standing on the Black Comet, I felt that same hostile presence and the feeling of being watched from all directions. Except it was worse. Whereas the Biolizard was but one enemy, here there were thousands. I felt the heat of their lava-blood, tasted their teeth, smelled their breath. They were everywhere, waiting to consume us and all of Mobius.

I gripped Nox's leg for support. I felt like I was smothering. Mekion appeared in the dimness to my left and folded his arms. "What're you afraid of, Shadow? The Black Arms are on our side. Don't get panicky."

"You don't understand," I snarled at him. "This is like the Biolizard. But how is that even possible? The Biolizard was just an experiment. It wasn't an alien!"

Mekion didn't answer because Doom was approaching. In one hand he carried a wrinkled, scaley thing, like an old snake skin. He held it out to me. I took it, trying to hide my disgust. It was heavy and it stank.

"That is an environment suit," said Doom. "I had to resize it to fit you. You can survive in a vacuum while wearing it, if necessary. It will also insulate you from the more noxious of the atmospheres on the ship."

"Oh boy, an alien space suit," I thought. I shook it open, identified the sleeves and pant legs, and pulled off my skates so I could put it on. I left the bracelets on, though. Mekion wasn't taking over my powers again.

The suit was leathery and rustled as I struggled into it. My spines kept catching on it, and Mekion's metal ones were the worst. But finally I got the thing on, and examined the front for a zipper or something. Doom stepped forward and ran his finger up the cut. It sealed for him without a seam, as if the leather simply grew together. But it didn't stop there. A hood-thing swarmed up my head, between my spines, down my forehead, up my face-

I ducked and clapped my hands to my face, then yanked them away-my fingers were scaley. I opened my eye cautiously. Some kind of transparent forcefield hovered an inch from my face, leaving my eyes, nose and mouth free. The air smelled canned, but otherwise I could not tell that I wore a faceshield. I looked down. Aside from my skates, which I slipped back on, I looked exactly like an alien. I wore black scales with red markings on the arms and legs. It felt like wearing a wetsuit; stiff in the joints and a little constricting. I looked at Nox. He looked revolted.

I turned to Doom. "How do I get this off?"

"You will have no need to remove it," he said with a wave of his hand. "Come with me. I shall show the position of our enemies."

"What about me?" exclaimed Nox.

Doom looked at him. "Oh yes. You will be safe enough here."

At once tentacles sprouted from the floor and wrapped around Nox's ankles. He screamed. "No no no! Don't let it eat me!"

"It will merely hold you," said Doom. He turned and floated on.

I hesitated, looking back at Nox. "I'll be back soon." I followed Doom. Still, leaving Nox like that felt like a bad omen. Once he gave up the emeralds, would they kill him? But he wouldn't give them up to the aliens, not while he could still fight. I felt the towering menace of the comet, and cowered inside. They would kill both of us in a heartbeat. Who was I kidding?

Doom let me down a passage that dripped with moisture, the walls rounded and shiny, like the throat of some enormous monster. I kept my eyes on Doom's back and tried not to look too closely. Behind me, the Eye floated silently.

We came to a large round window, with a magnifying lens in the middle of it. Doom laid a hand on it and swivelled the lens to point downward. It showed a telescopic view of a cluster of GUN spacecraft. There were about fifteen ships, all different sizes. They all looked like passenger jets, I noticed. They either had a tight budget or no imagination.

Doom moved a finger, and the window-lens zoomed in even more, on the biggest ship in the middle. It had a flat deck on top. Clear as crystal and very small, I saw a squadron of armored GUN mechs, led by one monstrous one. They moved into a close circle. There was a tiny spark of green, and they all vanished.

Sonic. I cursed him in a whisper. He was on the Comet with GUN now. I thought about it, and I didn't much care if they fought the Black Arms. The sheer size of the Comet assured me that their attempts were in vain. I just didn't want Sonic siding with my enemies. Not now.

"Where are they?" I asked Doom.

He and the Eye exchanged glances. I recognized the look-he was conferring mentally with his counterpart. "The lower deck," said Doom. "Just inside the first flight deck. The teleport they used must operate on line of sight principles."

Of course, because Sonic didn't know what the inside of the Comet looked like, so he couldn't teleport there. I grinned in spite of myself. "Can I go after them?" I said.

"Feel free," said Doom. "Remember your pendant. If you have need of myself or the Eye, use it to summon us."

I sprinted away up the hall, eager for a knock-down, drag-out fight.

The trouble was that I couldn't find them.

I skated down winding passages, through vast caverns lit by purple light, through aisles of alien pupas with half formed Oaks inside them. The whole place was hot and stank like a filthy pet store, even though my filters.

Finally, I had stopped on the brink of a deep chasm, and was looking over the edge, when Mekion appeared beside me. "Hey genius," he said, "why not let me connect to their system and find maps?"

"I didn't know they had computers," I said, feeling foolish. It was so obvious.

"See," said Mekion, "this is why I should be in control."

He uplinked. I felt him slide through greasy protocols and handshakes, and watched on my inner screen as he slithered into the system. He felt as alien as I looked in my spacesuit. He found maps, all right. He also found a bunch of other things that he instantly tried to hide from me.

But ever since our encounter at his foundation where I saw the three laws intact, I have had a deeper foothold in Mekion than even he suspected. I obediently began following a mapped route to where GUN was indicated. At the same time, I did the mental equivalent of peeking over Mekion's shoulder.

The information downloaded to my brain at the speed of thought. It was so fast and so much that I had to catch my breath. Mekion spun around and blocked me, but I already had it all.

And I wished that I hadn't.

It was a video somehow recorded through the eyes of a Black Warrior. Another warrior lay on a bed in front of him, outlined in reds and yellows. His scaley skin was greyish, and a large wound gaped across his chest. As the observing alien watched, a film dropped over the dying alien's eyes, and its rattling breath stopped. At once a white, smoky substance rose from its body. Its soul?

As I made this connection, I saw a huge black thing burst through the floor, sieze the soul, and drag it downward, out of sight.

I recoiled in horror, but the observing alien looked on stoically. A lot of information followed in the alien language, but as it rolled through my mind, I found that I understood it.

Apparently, the whole race can see much further into the spectrum of light than we can. One thing they can see is a person's soul. For generations they had seen departing souls be dragged to a place of torment, so their culture became built around the things they liked best-like war. If you were going to suffer in the afterlife, you might as well enjoy this life! This was overlaid with layers of propaganda. The leader of the race-Doom and his Eye-told his people that the more sentient races that they killed, the less they would suffer in the afterlife. This was followed by a video of a black alien dying, and its spirit unexpectedly ascending in a beam of light.

I fast-forwarded through the information as I skated through the Comet, coming closer and closer to the attacking GUN mechs. The religion of the Black Arms had shaken me. It was based on tangible evidence, even misdirected into Doom's own ends as it was. How did one argue with what they saw? Did humans and Mobians also go to a place of torment when they died? What about Maria? Was she suffering right now?

These questions fanned my hatred of GUN into a towering inferno. If Maria was suffering, then Striver would suffer ten times as much!

I rounded a corner and saw three mechs battling a squad of Oaks and Warriors. The lead mech-a huge, armored thing with rockets and pulse lasers-was felling aliens left and right. 'Diablon' was painted across its co*ckpit. I clenched my teeth and charged.

I sprinted across the room, leaped into the air, curling into a spindash-when Sonic flashed out of nowhere and intercepted me, knocking me out of the air. I slammed into the floor and bounced to my feet.

Diablon turned to face me, and there was a moment of quiet. The aliens and mechs all stopped fighting to watch. Sonic wore an oxygen mask over his nose and mouth, with air filters on its sides. Handy-no tank required. "Nice outfit, Shadow," he said, muffled behind the mask. "You look just like one of your little alien pals."

I couldn't care less about Sonic. My eyes raked Diablon. Inside the co*ckpit was a human with gray hair-Striver. I recognized him, aged though he was. The man who had killed Maria.

The mech itself floated on a hoverpack, lacking legs. Two heavy poles protruded from its shoulders, generating shields around it. To destroy the mech, I had to destroy its shields.

"Get out of the way, Sonic," I snarled. "If I have to hurt you, I will."

"Shadow, we're trying to stop the invasion!" Sonic exclaimed. "If we fail, then they'll wipe out Mobius!"

I pointed up at the Diablon. "Striver killed Maria, Sonic! Once he's down, I don't care about the rest of you."

Sonic deflated like a popped balloon. He stared at me, then at Striver, then at me. I took advantage of this to leap over his head, curl into a ball, and strike at those shields.

I sank through them with an electronic buzzing in my left ear. They only repelled energy blasts! Well well. I struck a shield pole, rebounded and crashed into the co*ckpit. I glimpsed Striver's horrified face as I dropped back to the floor.

It was then that I realized that my suit had sealed tight to my skin, leaving my spines exposed. Especially Mekion's deadly metal ones. I grinned.

Striver wasted no time. He charged his shields with a crackle of green light, and launched twenty-five rockets at me. I broke into a skating run, and the rockets blew holes in the floor. To my disgust, the floor quivered and purple slime welled up to fill the craters.

The Diablon swooped after me with a screech of jets, and the other mechs and aliens scrambled out of the way. Sonic, however, stood in the middle of the room and watched us fight.

I doubled back and ran under Diablon for a look at the hoverjets. Its arms lashed at me, and the massive hands on the ends came uncomfortably close to grabbing me. I ducked away, ran off to get some breathing room, and came face to face with Sonic. He gazed at me thoughtfully. "What?" I snapped at him as I swerved around him.

As I spun to face the Diablon again, I saw the Eye. It lurked high up, near the ceiling, almost invisible in the dimness. But its glowing iris gave it away. "Hi Doom," I said. I got up a running start, spindashed and smashed into the Diablon, almost snapping one of the shield poles.

As I rebounded and landed on my feet, Doom said, "Beware of the energy cannon. It is a nuisance." As he said this, I saw the building glow on the front of the ship, just below the co*ckpit. I ran for it.

A blue-white laser cut across the room, slicing the floor, the walls, the ceiling, in one wide arc. 'A nuisance' was putting it a little lightly, I thought, as the beam nearly bisected two Black Oaks. As the Diablon finally shut the beam off, I ran up behind it, jumped through the shield, and applied my metal spines to the already dented shield pole. This time I tore it off. Static washed through the left side of my body and I tasted ammonia. The shield on the Diablon's right side went dead, allowing me room to tear it apart without interference.

I would have, too. But Sonic got in the way.

He appeared in front of me, arms out to shield the Diablon. (This was purely symbolic, seeing as one of its fingers was as big as his whole body.)

"Get out of the way, Sonic," I growled.

"No," he replied. "This ship is the only weapon we have that the Black Arms are afraid of. See what they did? They got you all upset so you'd destroy it for them."

"Striver killed Maria," I said. "It has nothing to do with his robot or the Black Arms." Mekion materialized to my left, hands clenched into fists. We faced Sonic together.

Sonic stood his ground. "If you didn't know who he was, would you still fight us?"

I looked at Mekion. He bared his steel teeth. "That doesn't matter," he said through my mouth. "What matters is that you're in my way." Mekion lunged forward and punched Sonic in the face. To my shock, Sonic fell backwards, holding his jaw. I looked down and saw that Mekion's body sprouted from mine, so that we were joined at the mechanical arm. I had actually punched Sonic.

Mekion looked at me with bloodlust in his eyes. "Let's kill him." I did the only thing I could do.

I turned and ran. Mekion laughed at me all the way.

They let me go. I could feel Mekion's control trembling within my limbs, living and robotic. He could have made me kill Sonic and I would have done it. The only reason he had not chaos blasted everything were the bracelets on my wrists, containing the power.

Who was I now? Was I Shadow, or was I Mekion? I kept skating. I just needed to get away from everyone. I fled, trying to flee from Mekion. But he was inside me, living as I lived. Which of my thoughts were mine?

I fled down black corridors, through domed rooms with floors of red and purple liquid, past rows of cocoons containing the next generation of aliens, past machinery that pulsed green and yellow. Finally I had to stop and rest. I halted on a sort of balcony overlooking several levels of platforms, all moving in and out of a huge ultraviolet lamp. Each platform was covered in eggs.

I stood there panting and alone. I wished that Nox were there. I had no idea where in this place he was anymore. I needed him to tell me if I was Mekion or Shadow, because I had lost track. I looked back, half-hoping to see him running after me. No sight of a black and gold bird, but sailing toward me was Doom and the Eye.

I stood and waited. There was nothing else I could do. Inside me was Mekion like an alien in a cocoon, writhing, trying to get out. I shook so hard that I had to grasp the gooey balcony railing to keep from falling down.

Doom inclined his horned head and studied me. "You have brought us all but one of the Chaos Emeralds, Shadow."

I nodded, willing my teeth not to chatter.

Doom held out a hand. In it was my orange Chaos Emerald. I opened my mouth to ask what he had done to Nox to get that emerald, but he said, "You know the location of the final emerald. Go and retrieve it."

Mekion reached out and took the emerald while I watched. "Did you take Sonic's emerald?" I managed to say through my teeth.

"Yes," said Doom. "He was preoccupied with his broken jaw."

I broke Sonic's jaw? Horror hit me like a lead weight, but Mekion laughed uproariously. "He was lucky to escape with his life!" he said with my mouth.

I cupped the emerald in both trembling hands and thought of Mecha. "Chaos relocate," I whispered.

Chapter 10: The fatal wound

Chapter Text

Hopping back to Mobius with only one Chaos Emerald was difficult. I had to surf the chaos field until gravity caught me and drew me in. I landed on all fours and had to gasp for breath. Long jumps were hard to do. After a moment I straightened up and looked around.

I stood on the bank of a river. It wound through a forest of huge, ancient trees, their gnarled roots deep beneath the riverbed. Before me was a clearing roofed by tree limbs, and in this clearing stood Mecha, all alone.

The silver water and green of the leaves were unexpectedly soothing after the mad purples and blacks of the Comet. I wanted to sit down and stare at the rippling water for hours. Instead I stepped forward and said, "Mecha?"

He turned. For a second I didn't recognize him-I thought I saw a hedgehog, living and breathing, and weirdest of all, happy. Then the vision passed and it was only Mecha, his metal in need of polishing, but his eyes were a bright, healthy crimson. "Shadow?" he exclaimed, hurrying forward. He stopped just out of reach, and I felt Mekion's hatred flare up inside of me. If he came any closer, I would hurt him.

"Mecha," I said, and stopped. I wanted to tell him everything, but Mekion was there under the surface, waiting to strike like a poisonous snake. I gripped my Chaos Emerald and licked my dry lips. Mecha gazed at me with thoughtful kindness. "You've come for the last Chaos Emerald, haven't you?"

I nodded. Suddenly my tongue came unstuck, and I said, "Mecha, I'm in trouble." The whole story poured out in a rush; Doom, Mekion, the emeralds, Nox, Sonic, Striver. I doubt it made much sense, but Mecha listened carefully.

When I finally babbled into silence, Mecha gazed off at the river for a long moment. "Wait here," he said. I watched as he walked back into the clearing, bent and picked up the violet Chaos Emerald where it lay on a stone. Then he returned, eyes narrowed. "I have to do something about Mekion," he said. "Otherwise he will make you do something that you will regret."

"What can you do?" I said despairingly.

He lifted his emerald. "I have located the Master Designer, Shadow. He gave me this." He held up his wrist and displayed the rune engraved on it. "He also taught me many things about chaos power. My own unique powers in particular." I raised an eyebrow. He smiled. "The ability to modify machines is one of them. Please lie down."

I flopped on the leaves at once. My suit kept me from feeling them, sadly.

Mecha knelt over me and placed his cool hand on my forehead, through my forcefield face shield.

At his touch, Mekion screamed and writhed, and so did I. I couldn't help it. Into my mind, from Mekion, flashed metaphorical images of what was happening. Dogs barking, snarling, yelping-a multi-headed creature locked into a cage-a robot hedgehog divided in half and pinned to the ground by giant padlocks-

Suddenly there was silence. I opened my eye. There was no sound from Mekion. No pressure. It was as if he had vanished from my head. Mecha, however, was shaking and breathing hard. "I have temporarily imprisoned him," he told me. "He was able to fight me, which should not be possible." He sat back on his heels and helped me sit up.

I looked at my suited hands and flexed them. My robot hand was sluggish without Mekion to help run it. "Thank you, Master," I said, and there was no Mekion to fight me about it.

Mecha gave his usual slight wince. "Please, do not return to calling me that." He rose to his feet, looked up at the sky and passed the emerald from hand to hand. I knew that he did not want to part with it.

I stood, too. "I should get back-"

Mecha looked at me, his eyes piercing. "Shadow, I must ask. Are you handing the Chaos Emeralds over to Doom?"

I looked at the ground. With no Mekion to throttle me, I found that I disliked lying very much. I met Mecha's eye and answered with absolute honesty. "At this point, I have no choice. He has Nox."

I shriveled inside, waiting for Mecha to berate me, to tell me that I should have fought off Mekion and not placed Mobius into the hands of a bloodthirsty alien race. But Mecha's reaction shocked me. He placed the Chaos Emerald in my hands and laid a hand on my shoulder. "Then I shall come with you."

Mecha's additional emerald made the jump back to the Comet much easier. Plus he had a grasp of chaos power that amazed me. I half-expected him to tell me that he could teleport using only the planetary chaos field. But he hardly said anything at all, because he was trying to breathe the atmosphere of the Comet without an air filter. From the moment that we set foot on it, Mecha kept his mouth shut, except for a brief cough now and then. He hardly even spoke over our network.

Doom was waiting for me, which was the other reason that Mecha stayed quiet. Doom looked at Mecha quizzically, and the Eye's pupils focused on him. "Who is this creature whom you have brought, Shadow?"

"A friend," I invented hurriedly, "who wants to join our cause before the prosperity ritual." I still didn't know what a prosperity ritual was.

"Then he is welcome," said Doom. "The Chaos Emeralds, please."

"Just a minute," I said. "Where's my chao?"

"Your affection for such a pathetic creature is commendable," said Doom. "I am sorry you want him back. My scientists wished to study him." He reached under his robe and produced Nox, who was curled up in a tight ball. Doom touched the back of his neck, and Nox awoke with a squeak. He flung himself into my arms and clung to me, whimpering.

"Now," said Doom, "the Chaos Emeralds."

I really didn't want to hand them over. Thus when another interruption came, I welcomed it. Even though it was Sonic, Tails, Knuckles, Rouge, and the entire GUN mech fleet. It was a good thing we were in a fairly large room, because they took up most of it.

"Shadow, don't give them to him!" cried Tails.

Sonic's mouth was taped shut, but he spared a cold look for Mecha before waving his arms at me. Striver shouted over his mech's loudspeaker, "Doom, we have you surrounded. Surrender."

There was silence. Doom looked at the crowd and the various weapons trained on him.

He laughed.

It was that terrifying, booming laugh of his, the one that mocked all of us as one. I missed Mekion's sneering backup, and looked to Mecha. He watched Doom with disgust. If Mecha was undaunted, then so was I.

"It is a pleasure to see all of you here," said Doom. He lifted a hand and waved it. Instantly black tentacles sprouted from the walls, floor and ceiling and grabbed everyone except Mecha and me. The mechs had their legs and weapon racks crushed with a horrible shriek and grind of metal, but the co*ckpits went unharmed. The Mobians, fortunately, were only grabbed and kept from moving.

"My children always need food," Doom told them all. "And your gift of technology shall not be wasted. In the meantime ..." He clapped his hands and the Chaos Emeralds disappeared in a flash of light. "Thank you, Shadow, for your gift," he said, inclining his head toward me. "Now our prosperity ritual can begin as planned."

"He's going to destroy Mobius!" Knuckles yelled. "Do something, you guys!"

I looked helplessly at Mecha. He met my eyes and said over our network, "Do nothing, say nothing." It was so pleasant to hear his voice in my head again that I actually relaxed a little.

"Destroy? Oh no," said Doom, chuckling. "The peoples of your planet have shown such aptitude for bloodshed, violence and betrayal that our taking over your world will actually protect them from themselves. Your people's bodies generate so much power that we will care for them well. But your military-ah, that must go." The tentacles holding the mechs tightened a little with a meaningful crunch.

"And now," said Doom, "I have business to attend to." He turned and floated away through a door that closed behind him.

"Go after him," Mecha said in my head. "I will see to the others." I hesitated, wanting to ask how, but there was too little time. I dashed for the door with Nox still in my arms.

The door irised open for me, and I stared down a long, sloping passage that faded into purply gloom at the far end. Doom was floating down it very quickly. I sprinted after him. What would I do when I caught him? It had been so long since I had been allowed to think without Mekion. Now I could figure out whose side I was on, after all. Mekion was on his own side, I knew. He attacked both sides as the mood struck him, as capricious as Robo Knux. He wanted to devour me, and maybe he had. But what about me?

"Nox," I whispered, "whose side am I on?"

He looked up at me. His eyes were bloodshot from the Comet's atmosphere. "You're on Mobius's side, Shadow. Right? You're not going to let Doom have it, are you?"

My thoughts flashed back to Maria's last words. Give them a chance to be free. Slavery to a deranged alien race was not freedom. I should know that better than anyone. Doom had taken advantage of my weakened mental state, and now he had all seven Chaos Emeralds.

"Yes Nox," I breathed. "I'm going to save Mobius."

I caught up to Doom just as he entered the nerve center of the Comet. It was a vast room that was exactly like being inside a brain. The walls were folded masses of gray matter, and everywhere were blinking blue lights and glowing, bulbous screens. I did not dare look at the floor. "Doom," I said, "hold it right there."

He turned his head. "Hello Shadow. Have a change of heart?"

"Yes," I said, aware that I looked anything but fierce with a chao in my arms. "I've come to stop you from taking Mobius."

Doom waved a hand, and the Chaos Emeralds appeared, floating in a multicolored arc over his head. "It is rather too late, Shadow." He made a sharp gesture at me.

Pain stabbed through my head. Blinded, I staggered and gasped. I heard Doom say, "Did you never wonder at the source of your agelessness? Dr. Gerald used DNA from many sources to construct you, but your self-healing prowess comes from me. And because we share blood, I can control you the way I control the rest of my children."

I fought the control the way I fought Mekion; squirming like an eel inside, attacking all the corners, reaching, grasping-

The pain stopped. I had broken his hold. Doom actually flinched as I straightened up. Maybe Mekion hadn't been all that bad for me.

"Impressive," said Doom. "But you are still far too late to stop me." He stretched out both arms. "Chaos relocate."

He did not move, and neither did I. But something did. The floor rippled under my feet and tilted slightly. One of the globe-screens showed a city skyline with the vast, ugly shape of the Comet materializing above it. Immediately it sprouted long, drill-like feelers that lanced out and buried themselves in the ground, smashing through buildings and pavement on the way.

Doom looked at me smugly. "I have teleported the Comet directly to the surface of your planet. Now the ritual can begin in earnest. Capturing Mobius will make my people incredibly prosperous."

I was speechless. I had completely, totally blown it. This was the end.

I watched the screens as millions of Black Arms swarmed to the exits. There was nothing I could do to stop them. I looked down at Nox and saw him staring at me with his mouth open. I had betrayed the whole world, me and my alien blood and the robot in my head. I wanted to curl up and die. No, that wasn't good enough. I should die and have my soul dragged into torment. It was what I deserved for allowing this.

Then Mecha's wonderfully sane voice spoke in my head. "Shadow, I have evacuated all the prisoners. There is a message here on the ARK playing over and over. I think you should see it, therefore I am patching it in."

At once a window opened in Mekion's eye and showed an image of Dr. Gerald. It was before the shutdown, because he was standing in the lab I knew so well. He looked earnestly into the camera. "Shadow," he said. "If you are seeing this message, then the worst has happened. Black Doom has returned and possibly initiated that abomination of a ritual. There are things you must know.

"First, when I was trying to engineer the ultimate lifeform, I could not make it work. Neither could the other team. So when the Black Comet passed by, I tried contacting it. The reply I received was Black Doom himself. He said that they had been watching Mobius for some time, and would help me if I insured that he received the Chaos Emeralds as payment. What choice did I have? Maria was dying. He granted me a vial of his blood and a grub in a jar. The grub went to the prototype, and the blood to you."

I thought of the Biolizard's aura of menace. So that was why. It had a baby Black Arm for a brain.

"I knew that the only way to defeat Doom," Gerald went on, "was to turn back his own power on him. Surely the ultimate lifeform could defeat an alien. I mingled your DNA with that of the most powerful Chaos users on Mobius, and your aura was dangerously strong from birth. You can defeat Black Doom, Shadow. I made you specially to do it."

Wow. This was the reason I had been made. I had wondered about that for years ...

Gerald went on, "The Eclipse Cannon is the only weapon that we have that is capable of destroying the Black Comet. Use it, Shadow. Doom and his people travel from planet to planet, consuming the inhabitants. He will tell you otherwise, but we hacked some of his records. You must stop him forever, Shadow." The message looped back to the beginning, and Mecha shut it off.

Doom, meanwhile, was unaware of the message. He and the Eye were busy in the far end of the room, doing something with the emeralds. I watched him and said to Mecha, "That was educational, but what do I do now?"

"Dr. Robotnik has been charging the Eclipse Cannon for a month," said Mecha. "For what purpose, I do not know. But he has consented to fire it at the Black Comet. It must be brought back into orbit, however."

"See, that's the problem," I said, glad that Doom couldn't hear me. "It's down on Mobius right now."

"I am aware of that," said Mecha sarcastically. "Relieve Doom of the emeralds and teleport the Comet."

I watched Doom plug the emeralds into the brain-wall. "Easier said than done."

"You were trained for combat and have proven your viciousness before," said Mecha. "I am confident that you are a match for him."

Coming from Mecha, this was a compliment. I couldn't help grinning. "Hold onto me, Nox," I whispered. He clung to my chest, digging his claws into my suit. I charged at Doom and curled into a spindash.

Doom laughed before I reached him, which was a bad sign. He did not move, but the Eye glided between us, and for the first time since I had seen it, it turned its back to me. The inside of its arms were covered in fanged suckers, and a gaping mouth opened in the center. I altered course. The Eye did not see this, naturally. I hit the brain-wall instead, bounced off and hit Doom in the head.

There was a burst of power that sent me bouncing around the room like a pinball. Lightning arced through the room. Doom roared, "For that, Shadow, you will die!" I found myself bouncing back at the Eye, which now had the Chaos Emeralds in its tentacles. I reached out an arm-

Nox, clinging to my chest and protected from the action by my body, gave a determined shout. Suddenly a bubble of fire wreathed me. The Eye cringed away from the heat, and I snatched a Chaos Emerald from it as I passed. The Ruling Green, incidently.

I hit the floor running, and only stopped when I reached the doorway. The Chaos Emeralds shone like flares, pouring their energy into Doom. His shape had melted into a lump. As I watched, this lump grew and grew, bulging and rippling, sprouting an arm here, a claw there. His bulk threatened to crush me against the wall, so I escaped up the hall.

The green emerald in my hand was also burning, scorching my hand with chaos energy. I stood still and looked at it. "Go Super, quick," said Nox. "Doom's turning into some kind of monster!"

I was nearly Super as it was. It took very little effort to draw all that power into myself and-

PAIN PAIN AWFUL PAIN

The emerald clattered to the floor. I was on my hands and knees, having just emptied my lungs in a scream. I had not gone Super since before I had been mecha-fused. There was too much power. It burned away my chaos shielding like wax in a furnace, and threatened to blow my robot half off.

Nox, now on the floor, grabbed my arm and jumped up and down. "Shadow, hurry!" He pointed down the corridor. The light from the control room was now completely blocked, and a huge clawed hand rested just inside the hallway.

"I can't," I whispered. "The power fries machines-it'll kill me."

Nox stared up at me, and I stared down into his wide dark eyes. "Okay," he said, frowning. "I have an idea. You know how I phase-shift into pure fire?"

I nodded.

"Well, I think I can protect Mekion that way. But we have to go Super together."

I barely understood him. The dividing line down my body hurt so badly that I wanted to sit and never move again. Unfortunately, I had no choice. Doom roared, his voice so deep that it sounded like the biggest subwoofer in the universe. The whole Comet quivered.

I grasped the emerald, and Nox laid his paws on it, too. "Now," we both said.

The power again rushed into me. At the same time, Nox's body expanded and disappeared in golden flames. I waited for the pain, but it never came. I felt insulated, like being wrapped in a blanket. I stood up and saw fiery wings trailing me on either side. A fiery bird head arched over mine and looked at me with white-hot eyes. "Sorry," Nox said in a voice like hissing flame. "I burned right through your suit."

I looked down. Sure enough, my alien space suit lay on the floor in blackened curls. I could finally see my fur-it glowed gold. Fire rippled and danced an inch away from my skin. Nox was my suit now, and he was much more stylish. I felt energized, light as air, and my fear and pain vanished. "Let's move a Comet," I said, grinning.

We teleported out of the Comet and floated high up over it, drifting on Nox's wings. The Black Comet looked like a huge warty toad seated on the spiky moss of the city. Sapphire City, it looked like. Darn these aliens! I hoped that the Eclipse Cannon blew the Comet into sand. I dove down toward it, arms tucked to my sides, aware of Nox's wings on either side streaming fire. His beak was just over my forehead, his eyes like twin suns. I never knew he could do this. My dear chao, always astounding me.

We dove under the Comet's belly and swooped up to brace ourselves against it. It was like a giant bumpy ceiling. "Help me, Nox," I said.

"I'm with you," he crackled.

I drew a deep breath and thought of space. "Chaos relocate!"

Remember when Sonic and I moved the ARK? The effort involved with that just about killed me. Moving the Comet was just as bad. Even with the power of all seven emeralds, we had to lift this giant mass up through Mobius's gravity well, fighting opposing forces all the way. It took barely a second, but it was the hardest second of my life.

We reappeared in space above Mobius. I let go of the bumpy ceiling and rocketed away, panting. The emeralds provided me with air, or something. Anyway, Nox and I got away as fast as possible. The Comet slowly shrank behind us. It was only when I turned back to look that I saw seven colored stars orbiting us. The Chaos Emeralds. So where was Doom ...?

The ARK hung in space like half an orange. The long spike in the middle, the Eclipse Cannon, split and opened like a flower. Blue light blossomed from the center. Nox and I watched as a blue bolt of energy erupted from the cannon and blasted the Comet, searing into its side.

The beam stopped. The Black Comet hung there still, a black crater smouldering on its side. I cursed. "Not enough power!"

"We have the emeralds," said Nox.

I grinned up at him. "I like the way you think."

We teleported to the ARK's control room. It was a tower of computer equipment with holographic screens floating in the air around it. Mecha and Robotnik stood at opposite consoles, obviously not speaking to each other. My sudden appearance startled them. They gaped at Nox and me. I flashed a grin at Mecha, who suddenly looked delighted. "Ingenious way of overcoming the mecha-fusion limitation!" he exclaimed. "I never even considered using another chaos form as a buffer!"

"We're going to charge for another shot," I said. I walked up to the panels I knew so well, opened them, and stuck my fists into the slots reserved for Chaos Emeralds.

"We have full power," Robotnik announced. "Firing."

I looked up at the display screens. They showed the Black Comet floating in space, trailing the tendrils that had drilled into the ground. It looked like a squid. I willed the beam to destroy it this time-wipe it out, kill them all-

This time the beam burned completely through the Black Comet and out the other side. The Comet rolled over, venting atmosphere. We fired again, this time bisecting the Comet from stem to stern. Fire rippled along its sides, then it exploded in red and blue fire. As its pieces broke apart, they went on exploding as who knows what chemicals ignited. The Black Comet tore itself into shrapnel as we watched.

"That was awesome," said Nox.

I pulled my fists out of the emerald slots, and dusted my hands off. "Looks like I saved the world again," I said. "Maybe this time GUN will-"

Doom's voice boomed in my head. "You think it's over, do you?" I winced and put my hands over my ears. Robotnik and Mecha both asked what was wrong, but they were drowned out by Doom roaring, "I gave you life, and now I shall take it away!"

He was coming to destroy the ARK. I knew it as clearly as he did. I turned to Mecha and unsnapped my power-moderating bracelets. "Here," I said, thrusting them into his hands. "Doom's coming and I have to deal with him." Mecha stared, at a loss for words. I had no time to say anything else. Doom was coming. Nox and I teleported into space.

I expected to have to look for Doom, but he was hard to miss. He sat in the debris field left over from the Black Comet, industriously eating up the remains. He no longer looked anything like the robed, horned alien leader I had known. Now he was a vast, lumpy shape with two long arms, and giant red wings outstretched for balance in the vacuum. I flew toward him and said to Nox, "You know, that is too gross for words."

"No kidding," said Nox.

A giant lumpen thing on the front was a head, for I could see jaws ... but sticking out of the back was another head. Also with jaws. For a second it was like looking at Mekion. He had kept turning into a virtual model of that thing. As I swooped closer, the nearest head turned and a single red eye blazed in my direction. The Eye was embedded in the head, providing vision for the monster. The jaws opened and teeth gnashed. A giant jagged chunk of Comet disappeared down its throat. Down along its body, its flesh boiled out, erupted, then sealed over. What was he, living lava?

"Hi Doom," I said, stopping a few miles away. This seemed much too close, for he was several miles long already. "You know, I liked you better as a floating dude with robes."

"You saw fit to destroy my Comet," Doom rumbled. The subharmonics in his voice shook my bones and rattled my teeth. It was like listening to an earthquake. "I am spawning another."

I conjured up a Chaos Spear and threw it at the living landmass. It splashed against the vast neck, pitifully small and weak compared to his sheer bulk. But he noticed, and that red eye turned in my direction. "I will kill you, Shadow. And devour you. Your biological material will help form the walls of my new colony."

There are no words to express how disgusting this sounded except for 'ew', which was what Nox and I said.

"Stick a spear in the Eye," said Nox. "That thing has creeped me out from the beginning."

"Okay," I said, and did so. To my amazement, the whole proto-colony shuddered. The Eye popped off the head, writhing and squirming. Then it whisked around to the other head and stuck itself on there. "The Eye doesn't like poking," I remarked. I smiled at Nox, who grinned back. "Let's do it a lot!"

We chased the Eye from head to head, sticking Chaos Spears in it. It would have been more fun if I hadn't had a deep sense of fatigue under the chaos power. Also, about the time I poked the Eye for the fifth time, Mekion wiggled.

I had not dealt with him in what seemed like hours, and it's amazing how quickly I'd adjusted to having my head to myself. "Oh crap," I thought. "Just stay tied down until I finish this!"

"Unfortunately," said Mekion, his voice sluggish as he dragged his sensors online, "I have rebooted to free myself of the lockdown." I felt him inside of me-a pressure on my forehead, a drag to my arms and legs. I moaned. "No, no, no!"

"Mekion?" said Nox, blazing red in anger.

"Yes, he's awake," I said.

Mekion materialized to my left. But instead of being my size, he was gigantic, almost as big as Doom. He glowered at me. "You will see what it's like to be absolutely powerless, Shadow. Even chaos power won't save you." He swung a metal fist at me. It hit me like a freight train, sending me tumbling end over end through space, toward Doom. How had Mekion hit me like that? He was only my mind, wasn't he? I flailed, trying to stop, but in a place with no gravity or friction, all I did was spin crazily.

Nox shrieked, "Oh no you don't!" His wings fluttered.

We crashed into Doom's side. I heard a massive crack from inside him. It was only as I righted myself that I realized that Mekion had meant to knock me down Doom's throat. Nox had changed our course just in time. The Eye glared down at me-or was it Mekion? Nox and I shot away from Doom-only to encounter Mekion blocking our way. He stuck out a foot and kicked me back toward Doom. Nox altered course just enough to miss the gaping maw, but we again collided with Doom's unforgiving hide. As I scrambled upright, Doom's moon-sized hand swept down, cupped around me, and flung me down toward Mobius.

"Shadow!" Nox screamed in my ears. "What keeps knocking us back?"

"Mekion," I grunted. "Can't you see him?"

He appeared below us, a giant robot hedgehog wearing a malevolent grin. He dealt me another punch to the head, and I couldn't even block him. As we flew back at Doom, Nox cried, "You just hit yourself with your robot hand!"

As we smashed into Doom again, panic overtook me. I couldn't beat Doom, and I couldn't beat Mekion. Now they had joined forces to kill me. Even Nox, with all his power, could barely keep me from becoming a snack. "Think!" I told myself. "There has to be some way to beat them! Use your brain for once!"

"I am your brain," Mekion laughed. "And there is no way that you can defeat either of us."

I floated helplessly, not daring to leave Doom's side or Mekion would hit me again. Maybe I could charge the Eclipse Cannon again ... but Mekion was awake now. I couldn't do that. I looked up at the stars, then down at blue, tranquil Mobius. I had destroyed one Comet only to have to fight another ...

I looked up at the devil Doom's giant body-ship. Then down at Mobius. Gravity.

I swooped straight up, above Doom, waiting for Mekion's knockback, hoping that he had not read my thought. Apparently not, for he appeared and bashed me back into Doom. Again I flew up, and again he knocked me back. "What are you doing?" Nox cried.

"I have an idea!" I replied. "Bear with me!"

"What idea could you have that I am not privy to?" sneered Mekion in my ear. "You have always been stupid, your reasoning powers taking far too long. Death is too good for you. Perhaps I will suspend you and let you watch as I consume your body and destroy the world with it. Beginning with Metal Sonic. Yes, you do not wish to see him harmed. Maybe I will disassemble him to study the true impact of his genius in nanotechnology ..."

It went on. Mekion's dreary monologue, the endless bouncing back and forth, hitting Doom over and over. I couldn't tell if he was moving. I was getting bored, and so was Nox. But we kept on, hitting Doom over and over, pushing him down toward Mobius little by little. The drudgery was varied by Doom trying to eat me-he was obsessed with catching me-but Nox was too adept at dodging.

Then, when Mobius had become a gigantic blue and green floor below us, Doom and Mekion realized my plan. It was growing hot by then, and flying away from the planet was harder and harder. "No!" screamed Mekion. "Doom, fly! Fly! He has pushed you into the gravity well!"

Doom roared in anguish and beat his wings, which did nothing in the vacuum. I dove down and pushed against him with all my power, forcing him down still faster.

Mekion appeared to my left, wearing multiple heads, foam dripping from all their jaws. His eyes were squiggles and lines, and he finally looked as crazy as he had always acted. "Shadow," he said, "don't kill him, please ..."

Mekion, begging? I laughed in his face.

He attacked me with all of his jaws and claws. I writhed and fought, gripped by snakes and scorpion pinchers, crushed, squeezed-I kept pushing Doom down. Mekion electrocuted me. Protected by invincibility and Nox as I was, it only made my muscles quiver a little. He roared in helpless fury. Then he unleashed a chaos blast so strong it was like an atomic bomb. It didn't hurt Nox or me, but it sure hurried Doom along the road to incineration. As the fire faded, I heard Mekion wailing, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry!"

There was a roaring in my ears now. The heat was increasing, and smoke billowed off Doom on all sides. He shrieked in agony. Bits of him were burning off and flying away in ash. I watched his wings burn off, then his arms. We were in re-entry now, and only Nox, Mekion and I were going to survive it. Mekion had lost control of himself. He flickered through his various incarnations, howling. He beat me with my own fist. I ignored him. For once-just this once-I was in control.

It didn't take all that long to burn through the atmosphere-maybe twenty minutes-but it felt like ages. I watched Doom's comet-body burn and shrink, and finally break up into flaming pieces. Last to go was the Eye. It looked at me as its tentacles withered away and said with Doom's voice, "I gave you life ..."

It was not until the Eye was gone that I realized that the Eye was really Black Doom, and not the robed puppet.

Nox and I had no hope of stopping now, and the Chaos Emeralds streamed out behind me like a comet's tail, out of reach. I just rode the forces down, down, down, thankful for Nox's shielding. Below us was a trashed, burned city. Crash-landing there wouldn't hurt things too much, I figured. Nox spread his wings like a drag chute and began trying to slow us down.

I had forgotten all about Mekion. He had gone quiet and passive. I should have known that he had one more trick up his sleeve.

We had finally dropped below the speed of sound, and were barely half a mile above the city, falling fast. I was looking for a clear street to land on when my robot hand clenched. I looked down to see that Mekion had grabbed a Chaos Emerald. The poisonous red one. He bashed it into our chest.

Nox unmerged from me with a shriek. "No! Shadow! No!" he cried, fading into the distance behind me. The chaos power poured into my machinery, and the pain threatened to make me black out. Blindly, out of instinct, I clashed the Chaos Emerald into my chest again.

The pain vanished, and so did my invincibility. I was now a black hedgehog, falling out of the sky at three hundred miles an hour.

"You think you've won," Mekion giggled in my ear. He sounded quite crazed. "I can't abide losing. So here is where we part ways."

I never saw the piece of metal. It must have been sticking out of one of the ruined buildings. Mekion and I hit it dead-on. Then I was still falling, lopsided and cold. Gone. Mekion was gone. There was no pain. Or there was too much pain for me to feel. It was cold in places where it should not be cold, and the wind was tearing places where there should not be wind.

Impact. Rolling. Bouncing. Bleeding. It hurts, distantly. I am torn. I am broken.

Finally I am still. I look up at the sky with one eye. It's all I have left. It is curiously peaceful to lie there. No more battles in my head. No more voices in my ear. Any moment I will see what comes for my soul-the light or the darkness. But I defeated Doom. I defeated Mekion. I am at peace.

Mecha is there. He bends over me with tears in his eyes. Don't cry, Mecha.

I'm ... all right ... now.

Then death enfolds me in welcome wings.

End of part 1.

Chapter 11: Part 2: A journey begins

Chapter Text

I was Metal Sonic.

That is an unusual statement, yes. I began my existence as a power core, razor-sharp limbs, and a super-efficient nano-bio brain that was programmed to hunt and kill. That was me, and I was Metal Sonic.

But I am no longer Metal Sonic. The power core burned out. The razor-sharp limbs dulled and tarnished. The mind suffered defeat after defeat until it, too, shattered. The being that rose from the ashes of defeat and despair could not be called Metal Sonic any longer. My body was remade due to years of careful research, and my finest creation-a slave-rejected my enslavement and retaliated by becoming my friend. Often I wish that he had merely destroyed me for what I did to him. Anything but show me kindness. I do not deserve kindness. I was Metal Sonic.

So much for my past. Now I am merely Mecha, the android monster with glowing red eyes and a biometal body that breathes and bleeds. I still resemble a blue Mobian hedgehog, particularly one whom I do not name. Perhaps if he had been crushed in defeat, he would be in my place now.

No doubt you have heard of my exploits. My murders, inventions, and discoveries. No? You wish to hear about Shadow?

Shadow lives. But how he was snatched from the very jaws of death, and was reclaimed from Doom himself, is a long story. My story entwines with his, and with the being whom I have known only as the Master Designer. Without the Master Designer, I would have taken my own life, if a semi-organic creature can be called alive.

March 12th. Early spring. Nearly a year since my final defeat at the Hedgehog's hands. This time last year, I was amassing my fleet at the Egg Tower and scouting the colonies for weaknesses. Such a contrast to my current life, a solitary being in a cold, lightless underground bunker in the Ice Cap mountains. My only companion was Aleda, a small chao whom I had raised myself.

I left the base twice during the winter. The first time was during my first quest to find the Master Designer, when Shadow's loyalty was stripped from me. I had returned, injured and in need of rest, when Shadow reported that he was ill and in trouble. I left home again and journeyed about, and introduced Aleda to others of her own kind. But Shadow would not let me help him, so I rendered service to my old enemies, the Hedgehog and his companions, and returned home.

I remained there until March twelfth.

Aleda and I had always planned to resume our quest to find the Master Designer. But I had to wait until the nanites in my abdomen had repaired the damage caused by bullets, and it took much time. I spent this time researching any leads as to the identity of the Master Designer, and working with Aleda.

Aleda is a fascinating chao. She fascinated me when she hatched, and continues to do so. She is intelligent, and quick-witted, and is affectionate toward me. I cannot fathom this. I feed her and care for her, and she showers me with love and constant attention. It is a pleasant arrangement. I suppose that one does not have to understand such things to benefit from them.

March was the month that I intended to depart the base once more. That morning, I opened the door to the surface and cautiously stepped out of doors. The sun shone through patches of clouds that clung close to the mountain top to the north, and everywhere the snow crust was pitted and grimy. I co*cked my new ears, and faintly picked up the sound of water trickling. The snowpack was melting at last. Behind me, the doorway was ringed by dripping icicles a foot long. It was early for this altitude, but spring was approaching. Already the lowlands were green, two miles below us.

I returned indoors, closing and locking the door behind me. It was a steel door, eighteen inches thick, designed to withstand rocket blasts and concentrated assault. I kept it locked because I have enemies.

As I strode back up the corridor in complete darkness, I saw Aleda standing in the middle of the hall, staring toward me. I was using my infrared vision, of course, which illuminated my red eyes. "Mecha?" she said.

I picked her up and carried her. "Yes, Aleda?"

"Did you go outside?" she asked, turning her large eyes toward my face.

"Yes," I said. "The snow is thawing early this year. It will be a hot summer, even at these altitudes."

"Was it warm?"

"No. It is slightly over zero degrees celsius. However, it is warmer elsewhere, nearer sea level. We shall begin our journey today."

I opened a door off the hallway, and light and warmth poured out to meet us. I stepped in and shut us in with the comfort that electricity brings when run through two heaters and four overhead lights.

Aleda wriggled with joy and clapped her paws. "Goody goody goody! I can't wait to go have more adventures! Can we go to South Mobius and see elephants and moa?"

"Possibly," I said, feeling the urge to smile. "How do you know about moa?"

"Nox showed me on the computer when he was here," said Aleda. "That's what he thinks his chaos-large form is."

I set her on my tattered desk chair and entered the adjoining room, where I stored many useful items. One of these was my traveler's pack, which had accompanied me to Deimos Island and back, and had served me well. I unfolded it, shook it open, and began gathering the items that Aleda and I would need on a long journey.

Aleda bounded in to help. I packed such necessary items as Aleda's coat, my own, food, a gallon canteen, a tent rolled up in a cylinder, a sleeping bag that was sadly ripped down one side from my metal spines, and other such things. Aleda insisted that I pack her acorn. She had picked it up during a trek down the mountain, and it is her favorite plaything. It is small, and I did not mind the extra milligrams. It makes Aleda happy, and I ... how do I say it ... want her to be happy. I will do anything to insure her happiness. Happiness being a foreign concept to me, I want her to experience what I cannot, so I may observe and learn.

I completed packing within ten minutes, and made Aleda don her coat. I put on my own coat, and buttoned her inside of it for her own protection. I planned to hike through the eastern pass, and it was still covered deep in snow. Then I put on my pack and returned to the control room. I shut off and unplugged the computers, disengaged the heaters, and turned off the lights. Aided now by my infrared vision, I walked back to the steel outer door, exited, and locked it behind me. The next leg of my quest had begun, and if I was capable of happiness, then I was happy.

I climbed the ridge east of my base, sometimes slipping on the icy stones. Aleda poked her head out of the collar of my coat to watch out progress. I paused at the top of the ridge to survey the terrain. Eastward the mountains descended in ridges and peaks toward the inland plains of West Mobius. They were a vague hazy blue beyond the mountains. My destination was the Viper Canyon, a ravine that cut through the plains and was filled with volcanic hotsprings. Perhaps the Master Designer dwelt in a place like that. Described in such a way, it sounds dreadful, but I have read that it is a place of great beauty, where the Designer's hand is still at work.

After I descended the first pass, the going was easier. There had once been a road through the Ice Cap mountains. Dr. Robotnik had used it to build the base years ago, but winter buried it deep in snow and ice. I located it with some difficulty. It had once been paved with asphalt, but the runoff had reduced it to gravel and mud. I followed it cautiously for a mile, then at Aleda's urging, sped up to a jog.

"It is dangerous to travel this road at any speed," I told Aleda, as I slowed to round a hairpin bend.

"So?" she said. "If you don't hurry up, it'll take days and days to get out of the snow."

"I doubt that," I said, my voice jarred with my pounding feet. "We have already descended one thousand feet. Notice the trees."

To our right, the mountain stood up in a steep cliff. To our left, past the road, it dropped off into a gorge between the mountains that was filled with conifers. Snow lay beneath them in the shade, but the trees themselves were dark green, their tops bright and fresh with the onset of spring. I smelled their fresh scent on the wind as I ran. Aleda inhaled deeply. "Mecha, how come pine trees don't smell anything like that one 'pine fresh' cleaner?"

"Because the advertisers have to name it something refreshing," I said. "It has little to do with the actual odor."

The road sloped steeply downward, and I slowed to a walk. Below us, the road cut through the remains of an ancient rockslide. It formed a gentle, tree-studded slope just below the level of the road. I halted for a moment at this slope. I had not taxed my synthetic muscles this much in months, and they were tired. My average body temperature had risen ten degrees, and Aleda's warmth was uncomfortable. I unzipped my coat and set her on the ground. She stood there a moment, wavering. Aleda suffers from agoraphobia, the fear of open spaces, from being raised underground and indoors. She is coping better, however. As I watched, she scampered to the foot of a tree, where a patch of snow lay. She threw herself in it and made a snow-angel, then got up, shook herself off, and went hunting for pine cones. She is fascinated by them.

"Aleda," I informed her, "we cannot carry every pine cone that you encounter."

"But they're so cool!" she exclaimed. "Can I take this one? Please?"

I rolled my eyes. There are times when I wonder at the wisdom of owning a chao, for there are times when she annoys me unduly. I would never harm Aleda, but is my evil nature rearing its head, the trained killer that I am. "One pine cone only," I told her.

She selected her favorite with great care and deposited it in my pack. Then she opted to ride on my shoulder as we resumed our descent.

Our journey out of the mountains was uneventful and tedious to relate, but I enjoyed it. The weather was clear, and warm in the lower altitudes. By evening, when the sun set behind the mountains, throwing their shadows far across the plains before us, we had reached the temperate lowlands. We stopped for the night in a grove of fir trees that blocked the wind from the heights at our backs. It also cloaked us from unfriendly eyes. We were near the road, and as I have said, I have enemies.

I saw the comet that night.

I slept for five hours and awoke at two AM. My body was rested and ready for action, but the air outside the sleeping bag was frigid, and Aleda was burrowed down beside me for warmth. So I lay there, gazing up at the sky between the tops of the fir trees, and thinking.

I thought about my quest to locate the Designer of all life. I had so closely copied his design that by all copyright laws, he had the right to destroy my work. My work being my biometal body, this would be grievous. I knew that such a Designer must be more powerful than any being on the planet, and was prepared to seek him among all of Mobius's religions. Somewhere I would find him and plead my cause. The creatures created by a Designer must naturally reflect his nature, and I was hoping to find a Master Designer who would treat me kindly, even though I knew that I, of all beings, deserve it the least. There was also the chance that he might be capricious, good and evil, and destroy me out of ill-humor. That was a risk I must take. Apart from my search for the Designer, there is no reason for me to continue my pathetic half-life.

The stars wheeled overhead, and I watched their courses, wondering if the same being had also built the galaxies. It was in the midst of this pondering that I saw the comet. Hung like a frosty star among the constellations, it was dim and distant, its tail a suggestion of mist behind it. But the center, where there should have been a speck of light, was instead dark, like a hole with a tail. Strange.

I queried the nearest news network that I could locate with my wireless uplink, and searched for recent stories on a comet. I found several. It was called the Black Comet, and completed its orbit once every fifty years, bringing it within a few million miles of Mobius. This year it was coming even closer, and would reach perihelion in late May. Viewing promised to be spectacular. I filed this information as interesting but not immediately relevant.

I lay there until dawn, watching the stars drift with the rotation of the planet, and planned our route for the next day. I planned to follow the road toward a town called Ten Springs, then take an intersecting highway south across the plains toward the Viper Canyon. I estimated that it would take ten days of travel on foot to reach it.

Aleda awoke at dawn, and poked her nose out of the sleeping bag. "It's cold out there!" she exclaimed sleepily. "I'm hungry."

"As am I," I said. I sat up and opened my pack, which lay within arm's reach. I opened a rations pack, and we shared it. Eating is still a new experience for me. But I possess a carbon-based power core which takes the chemicals and sugars from organic food and breaks them down into simple forms that my nanites can consume. It is more efficient than my days of rocket fuel, but very unusual for a creature who used to be a robot.

By the time we finished, Aleda was warm enough to brave the morning chill. She stood and shivered while I rolled up the sleeping bag and returned it to my pack. Then I put her inside my coat, and set off at a lope up the road toward the rising sun.

The sky was clear, but the wind blew steadily from the northwest. By the time I reached the intersecting highway and turned south, a bank of dark clouds had appeared in the northwest and were rapidly overtaking us, casting shadows across the hills.

The plains themselves were semi-arid. I had only visited them before when the sun had baked everything golden brown. At this time of year, it was brilliant green as far as the eye could see, sprinkled with yellow flowers. My geographical information showed that to the north were many farms, but down south it was too dry and rocky, and settlements were sparse. Instead it was divided into grazing land for cattle and sheep, of which we saw many as we traveled. Ten Springs was the last large town until Viperdale, the town on the canyon's rim.

I had no intention of stopping in Ten Springs, but as I headed south past it, I began to wonder if that had been the best choice. The storm was fast overtaking us, and by my estimates would catch us nine miles from the next small town, a place called Morrowville. I do not like rain. Particularly when it rains enough to drown me standing up. Aleda rode on my shoulder, basking in the sunlight and observing our surroundings, especially the storm. "Those clouds are scary, Mecha," she told me.

"Yes," I said, nodding. "It is a thunderstorm. Few creatures enjoy such storms, for they are dangerous and uncomfortable."

I walked on, and Aleda rode with one paw hooked under my left head-spine. She gasped. "I saw lightning!"

"Undoubtedly," I replied.

Several minutes later a bass rumble of thunder reached our ears, and Aleda quivered. I calculated the time difference between the lightning and the thunder, divided by the approximate speed of sound at our current altitude, and concluded that the storm was ten kilometers away. I informed Aleda of this, and told her to watch for more lightning flashes so I could track the storm's speed.

The wind picked up, driving clouds of dust ahead of us, and buffeting my back. Aleda slid down into my arms, rubbing her eyes, and peered back under my arm. "Will we get struck by lightning?" she asked.

I looked around. There were scattered trees on the hills, but I am made of metal, which attracts electricity. "Perhaps," I said.

Aleda did not cry, but her eyes became very large. I stroked her comfortingly. "I doubt a strike will occur, Aleda. Such things are extremely rare. Besides, my feet have rubber soles, which insulate me." I did not add that such high voltage would pass through thin rubber like a blowtorch.

I walked on, and the storm advanced. Raindrops began to fall in scattered patches, and Aleda dove into my coat for protection. I walked on, blinking against the wind.

Presently the ran began to fall in a solid sheet, like a waterfall. A gray haze settled around the horizon, blocking the landscape from view. Thunder rolled and boomed overhead. Water ran down my head and into my eyes, streaming from my elbows to the ground. I kept walking, becoming cold and uncomfortable, carrying Aleda, who peeked out from time to time to check our progress.

The storm was moving faster than I, and after twenty minutes the rain abated, sweeping south. The horizon cleared and the sun shone again between rags of cloud in the storm's wake. I walked on, now wet and cold, carrying Aleda and muttering under my breath about now storms should occur in the afternoon hours, when it is warm.

We reached Morrowville that afternoon. The storm system, apparently having taken my advice, regrouped and made another assault, pouring rain so hard that I could not see in any direction. The road became a muddy river of gravel underfoot.

Thus, half-drowned and seventy-five percent blind, I entered Morrowville and sought shelter in the first public establishment that I located. I stepped under its awning off the street, pushed through the doors, and discovered myself in a restaurant. It was small, a pleasant seventy degrees, and empty at this time of day.

I considered altering my appearance to disguise my ... species, but thought it a waste of energy, as I intended to leave when the rain stopped. A waiter appeared and eyed me dubiously. A robot wearing a sodden jacket with a chao peeking through the zipper ... yes, strange. "Two, please," I said.

Aleda and I were seated at a small table in the rear of the restaurant. I removed my jacket and hung it over my chair, allowing it to drip on the floor, and stowed my backpack under the table. Aleda was given a booster seat, and she studied the dessert menu with enthusiasm. I ordered a hot chocolate for her, and coffee for myself. When it arrived, I poured three packages of honey into it to provide my body with some sort of fuel in addition to the caffeine. I drank it slowly. Aleda slurped her hot chocolate, and enjoyed the dollop of whipped cream on top so much that she distributed it evenly over her face, paws and sweater.

Halfway through my second cup of coffee, I realized that we were being watched.

Chapter 12: The robot cult

Chapter Text

A female lynx sat two tables away, pretending to read a magazine with a black cover. The tufts on the ends of her ears were braided, and she had a mechanical arm with all the outer paneling removed. I found this strange, for the delicate gears and circuits were exposed. She might experience a short if she jostled it.

I continued to sip my coffee, and she stared at me out of the corner of her eye. I suppose it is unusual to see an apparent robot consuming organic matter, but I am more android than robot, as I have explained.

I handed Aleda several napkins. "Clean yourself," I told her quietly. "We are being observed."

She looked around, saw the lynx, and hurriedly began to scrub her face and paws. "Why's she watching us, Mecha?"

"I do not know," I said. "But perhaps we shall find out."

The lynx rose to her feet and approached our table. "Hi," she said. "I couldn't help but notice you, sir. May I ask if you are a robian?"

"Yes you may and no I am not," I replied. "I am an android."

She held out her mechanical hand for me to shake. "I'm Leena," she said. "I'm a robian." She was proud of this fact.

I gave her my traveling name, for I do not care to reacquaint the general public with my reputation. "I am Melthision."

She sat down across from Aleda. "You have a chao!" she said in wonder. "How is that possible? I didn't think chao could bond with an artificial intelligence."

"Her presence proves that I am more than an artificial intelligence," I said coldly. I do not like being reminded that I am less than alive. I have tried to escape that label my entire existence.

Leena gazed at me, and Aleda gazed at Leena. Through my wireless voice channel, I heard Aleda venture, "Can you hear me?" Leena gave no indication that she heard, and Aleda gave a tiny shrug. Apparently Leena had not been through Robotnik's roboticizer, or she would carry the communication chip in her brain.

I gestured to her arm. "An injury?"

Leena looked down and flexed her hand, grinning. "Oh, do you like it? I just had it done. No injury, just-because robot parts are awesome."

"Your designer neglected your outer paneling," I said.

"Oh no," she said, becoming oddly breathless. "I wanted it off. To display the inner workings. It makes more of an impact that way."

I tried to grasp this statement. Impact? Did she assume that people would pity her? But she acted too proud to want pity. The situation and her attitude did not mesh. More information must be gathered.

"Why do you seek to impact people?" I asked.

Leena handed me her magazine with the black cover. I opened it and saw a picture of a female human whose body was mostly mechanical with an article entitled, "Dr. Robotnik is out, and bionic parts are in!"

This made me feel strange. Something akin to unexpectedly running out of rocket fuel at two thousand feet.

"How long are you staying in Morrowville?" she asked, still sounding breathless. "Could I take you to meet some of my friends?"

The last time someone had offered to take me somewhere, Aleda's life had been threatened. My ears angled enough to become pointed, which surprised Leena very much. "As long as you guarantee that no harm shall come to my chao or myself."

"Oh no, we would never do anything violent!" said Leena, shocked. "It's just-they'd love to meet you. You're an android, so you'd be-like-a celebrity. Please come."

It was still pouring rain in solid gray walls.

"Very well," I said.

We had to enter the rain again for a short while, but fortunately we did not have far to go. Leena led me up the street and around a corner, then we ducked onto the porch of a small house with relief. Leena knocked four times, varying the rhythm, and someone opened the door for us. "Leena and guests," she said as she stepped in.

I came eye to eye with some species of cat that was now roboticized. It possessed control of its mind, however, for it looked me up and down, then said, "You'll do. Come in." I felt Aleda shiver under my coat.

I removed my coat and hung it on a rack beside the door, placed Aleda on my shoulder, and followed Leena and the robot cat into the next room.

I suppose that the room had once been a living room. But now there was no furniture, no carpet, no decorations of any kind. Only bare floorboards and tables set up around the borders of the room. The tables were covered in robot parts; arms, legs, heads, broken torsos, and piles of components. It appeared that they were building robots. I had not seen such a selection since the junkyards of Robotropolis. I recognized SWAT-bots, various robian models, and an odd, sleek design that I realized must be from the biotics of the Black Claw army.

"This is unit one eighty-one," said Leena behind me. "We've been working with him, and he can say some words now." I turned and saw a six-foot silver bear standing in the corner. It was a biotic: a ferocious killing machine, now mindless without its leader. Its red eyes stared straight ahead. After the initial shock had passed, I felt sorry for it. How many other biotics were left, stripped of their minds and left empty?

The robot cat who had accompanied us turned to me. "I am Silta," she announced. "What is your name and model?"

"Melthision," I said. "I am an android, currently version eight."

Leena and Silta exchanged glances. "He's awesome," said Leena. "He's a true robot."

"Wait until the others arrive," said Silta. "Then we'll have you tell us about yourself."

They left me alone and huddled in a corner, talking in whispers. I examined the robot parts on the tables, intentionally not listening to them. Aleda had watched everything without speaking. Now she said through our radio link, "Can they hear us?"

"No," I replied, using the network. "I detect no uplink signals in the area. Whatever these robians are, they are not Robotnik's work, for they do not use his technology." Aleda can hear my network, not because of the brain chip, but because that is her special ability as a chao. She developed it when she evolved.

Aleda gazed at the silent robot bear, which was staring at the wall, oblivious to existence. "What's wrong with him?" she asked.

"He is a biotic," I said. When Aleda looked confused, I launched into an abbreviated account of Leviathan, Mecha-bot six, my creation, who rebelled and built himself an army capable of destroying the globe. He had nearly succeeded. His methods of creating biotics were frightening; first a Mobian underwent rigorous mental conditioning to remove the mind from the body, then the body was transformed into steel and wire, cell by cell, tendon by tendon. Leviathan's roboticizer technology was revolutionary, and I hope that it was destroyed. However, it was probably captured and resides in the depths of Mobian and human secret computer databanks.

I pulled no punches with Aleda, much as it pains me to admit my atrocities. It is because of me that that robot bear stands in the corner, nerveless and to all intents and purposes, dead. Aleda's eyes widened in a few places, but she held her peace until I finished the story. Then she said, "So biotics can't hurt anybody now?"

"No," I replied. "Leviathan himself was the weakest link in his own plans. He never dreamed that I would inform his enemies of the source of his power, because he sent assassins after me to silence me. But I lived, and when he fell, his army was left paralyzed. Many died and were buried in mass graves, or at sea. But the rest ..." I turned my head toward the bear. "The rest are like him." Aleda tilted her head and rested her forehead against my cheek for a moment. It was a gesture that showed that she still loved and trusted me. I raised a hand and stroked her.

By this time, more semi-robots had begun to arrive, shaking rainwater out of their fur and off their metal. One of them brought a squeegee, and swept the water off the robotic limbs of his companions. I wondered with amusem*nt if they were in danger of rusting, and why they did not use aluminum or stainless steel in their construction.

When Silta officially welcomed everyone, there were eighteen beings in the room, including myself and Aleda. All but one were robians of some sort-they possessed mechanical limbs or implants, like eyes. Only Silta and the biotic were full-body robots, however. The one creature not roboticized was an odd variety of hedgehog, with a long muzzle and hundreds of spines all over his body. He was the one with the squeegee. He stood behind the others, watching. Possibly an initiate, like myself.

I logged Silta's welcoming speech without listening. It was the customary pleasantries, expressing pleasure at seeing them all, complaining about the rain, announcing progress with unit 181. Then she shifted tracks, and I began to listen.

"Today we have a special guest," said Silta, waving a hand in my direction. "He is an android, one of the few among us to achieve transcendence in the ascent to perfection. He embodies the true goal of our Master. He is here to share with us the details of his journey, and impart the wisdom that comes with transcending the organic." She beckoned to me.

My limbs were reluctant to move. I had not expected them to wish me to speak. As I moved, I analyzed her speech as quickly as my processors could cycle. An android was a stage of transcendence? From the organic? She must assume that I began my existence as a mobian. She thought that I was closer to perfection than they were? She was sadly mistaken. But I had no desire to recount my own sordid past in front of a group who could both worship me or tear me apart if they wished. I moved up beside Silta and turned to face the assembly.

"Thank you for your courtesy," I said. "I am Melthision, and this is my chao, Aleda." There was a murmur of reciprocal greetings. "I am on a journey," I said. "A journey to uncover the identity of the Master Designer, creator of all life. I am unfamiliar with your views of robots, androids and transcendence. Would one of you please detail this?"

Silta motioned to one of the foremost creatures, who stepped forward. She was an antelope, petite and delicate, with a pointed face. One arm and both her legs were roboticized. She spoke softly but clearly.

"Our Master revealed that the evolution of Mobius is on the verge of a leap forward. The organic, with its cells and wastes, is obsolete. The next step is robotics technology. With robotics, we can abolish our decaying bodies and all the follies and evils that go with them, and enter an existence of pure mind."

I thought bitterly of Robo Knux. Like myself, he is desperately seeking ways of abolishing his mechanical body and becoming organic. In the meantime, his 'perfect' existence as 'pure mind' is driving him mad.

The antelope turned to me, her large liquid eyes sparkling. "And here you are, sent from the Master to enlighten us! So tell us, please-what wisdom do you have from your vantage point?"

They hung on my next words. I considered. I could feed them with rich, ornate lies about the wonders of being mechanical. Or I could tell them the truth, that being robbed of the senses statistically kills most robians within ten years.

"I have no new wisdom," I said. "I have had an existence of foolishness, hatred and misery. My body is the opposite of yours, in that I am nearer the organic than the robotic. I am seeking a reason to continue my existence, and that reason is the Master Designer. If you know of him, please share your information."

The robians exchanged glances. I had not said what they expected, but they did not appear upset. Silta nodded to Leena, who slipped out of the room. She returned a moment later, lugging a heavy framed painting. She hung it reverently on the wall, and all the robians except myself, the silver bear, and the hedgehog, all bowed to it.

I should not have been surprised at the identity of their Master, but I was, as well as sickened and bemused. I had expected an image of Dr. Robotnik, but instead, the red eyes of a mechanical velociraptor stared out of the painting, his face a mask of death. I had crafted that mask with my own two hands. Their god was Leviathan.

No wonder their philosophy sounded so familiar. They were disciples of the Black Claw's twisted self-worship. By becoming robots, they could become gods.

Silta and the rest turned to me, adoration in every eye. "Now you see him," Silta breathed. "He who would have ushered us into a new age. We are carrying on his ideals."

I looked at the painting and saw only Leviathan's raw, prideful evil. I wanted to vomit. There was no Master Designer here-only vile twisted technology and veiled suffering. I wanted no more of this. Even rain was preferable to this room and these pitiable creatures.

"Yes," I said. "Thank you for such a privilege. Please excuse my rudeness, but I must depart now."

They did not want me to go, but ten minutes later I extracted myself and escaped outdoors into the pouring rain.

I took refuge under the overhang of a shop three blocks away when Aleda said, "Mecha, could you put your coat on again?" She was drenched and shivering.

"I apologize, Aleda," I told her softly, setting her down on a patch of dry pavement under the overhang. I opened my backpack and realized that I had left the robot cult without retrieving my jacket. Curses.

As I gazed out into the rain, wondering if it was possible to recover my coat by stealth, I saw a lone figure trotting along the street under an umbrella. It turned in our direction. I traced it with a scan and identified the hedgehog who had been in the cult gathering. He approached us and stepped into our shelter, closing his umbrella. "Hello Melthision," he said, extending one arm, over which was draped my coat. "I think you forgot this."

"Many thanks," I said, taking it and draping it around Aleda like a blanket. My body was coated in water, and I did not want to dampen the inside of my coat by putting it on.

The hedgehog pulled the squeegee out of his coat and held it out, smiling. I smiled in return, something I rarely do in public, and proceeded to wipe the water off my metal. No one spoke until I was dry, and had donned my coat with Aleda zipped inside. Then I turned to the hedgehog. "You have no robot implants. Why were you at the gathering?"

"Curiosity," said the hedgehog. "I've known those girls for a long time, and I wanted to see what they were up to. By the way, I haven't introduced myself. I'm Melchizedek."

I shook his hand, feeling as if I had just swallowed ice water. "Aleda," I said through the network, "did you recognize this hedgehog?"

"Yep," she replied.

"Why did you not inform me of his identity?"

"Because those robots were scarier, and I didn't want you to freak out and ... and kill people."

Which is what transpired at the last strange cult gathering that we attended. Melchizedek, however, is a hedgehog who trailed me all over Mobius several months ago. Aleda and Nox observed him, but I had not. I assumed that he was either a figment of their imaginations or a spy with the technology to elude my instruments. But here he stood, quite ordinary, carrying no technology beyond the squeegee and umbrella.

I said the Melchizedek, "You must be the one who followed me across the country last November."

He grinned, showing even white teeth. "That'd be me, all right. You were in danger then, and I knew the people who were after you."

"Since you are here now," I said, "does that imply that I am in danger now?"

"Oh no," said Melchizedek. "You might have been in danger back there with the robians, but you handled it well. I'd like to go with you and help you out."

I scanned him and built a sketchy profile of his possible physical strength. He was the same height as me, but heavier built. He could harm me if he chose, and providing that he caught me off guard. From behind. When my sensors were off. Aside from the squeegee and umbrella, he carried a small, grimy knapsack and wore mud-splattered boots. He was a traveler, too. But why so willing to assist me?

"Why should I allow that?" I asked. "I have no wish for a companion. I could kill you at any time."

He only looked at me with such a calm, reproachful attitude that I felt ashamed. "You wouldn't do that, would you?"

I was forced to admit, "No." Then it dawned on me what had happened. He had a power similar to Nox's .. the ability to touch my thoughts and feelings by looking me in the eye. "You have an unusual chaos ability," I said.

He smiled. "Yes. They call me a Chaos Wizard."

I thought of my own pathetic attempts to utilize chaos energy and said, "Is it possible to train an android in chaos power?"

Melchizedek looked me up and down. "Pardon me," he said, stepping up to me. He placed the palm of his right hand on my forehead.

I felt a swell of power such as I had not experienced since the night on the Annihilator, when I had been the king of chaos power. Melchizedek released me and stepped back, looking thoughtful. I stood still, feeling the power slowly ebb and settle. I felt like a shaken snowglobe. "Yes," he said, "I think that I could train you. But your abilities will be unique."

"Useful?" I asked.

He nodded. "All chaos powers are useful."

That is how I came to travel with the hedgehog Melchizedek, and it was the turning point of my existence.

Chapter 13: Chaos power misused

Chapter Text

It took ten days to reach the Viper Canyon. The weather remained wet, and we traveled slowly, following the road and holding conversation.

Melchizedek informed me that using chaos power is a delicate thing, an art form, in fact. I had observed this myself. Shadow is an accomplished chaos energy user, and he is much better at it than certain other blue hedgehogs whom I will not name.

As we walked amid the unpleasant rain, Melchizedek had me remove the violet Chaos Emerald from my pack and carry it in my right hand. "The power varies from hand to hand," he said. "It has to do with the sides of the brain and how they process the information from chaos energy. Not many people know this."

I did not. But I did not mention it.

He also showed me how to hold it. Taking the emerald in his own hand, he placed the flat top against his palm, so the pointed tip faced outward. Holding it out from under the umbrella, he let the rain fall on the gem and trickle down the facets into his hand. "The greater the area of the gem in contact with your skin, the better control you have," he said.

He handed it to me, and I held it in my right hand, tip outward, as he had shown me. I felt a slight pulse of chaos energy. It was nothing like when Melchizedek had tested my chaos aura, but it thrilled me nonetheless. I could feel the power from the emerald itself. This had not happened since I had destroyed myself with chaos power. I had thought that I had removed all sensitivity to chaos from myself, but fortunately I had not.

The first simple lessons intrigued me. My knowledge of chaos usage is full of gaps, like a broken sheet of glass. Melchizedek started from the beginning and taught me the basics, covering things I knew and things I did not. His knowledge was extensive. He told me about the composition of chaos crystal, and how the echidnas had studied it, raised it and groomed it until they produced the Master Emerald, which over time became a hub of chaos energy.

But I did not trust him. Sometimes I wonder if I am incapable of trust at all. I could not forget how Melchizedek had tracked me across Mobius, always unseen, always crossing paths with me to warn me of some danger. Now that I knew that he was a Chaos Wizard (a Mobian with three or more chaos abilities), I knew that he must have used Chaos Control to travel faster than I. The question was why. Melchizedek seemed in no hurry to inform me. I was therefore content to observe him. Sooner or later he would let fall enough clues that I would understand his interest in me ... and no one had ever been interested in me for my own sake. Perhaps he was a parts dealer and I represented a significant amount of money on the black market. I vowed to tear his throat out if he showed any leanings in that direction, Chaos Wizard or not.

But Aleda continually waylaid my misgivings. She listened raptly to Melchizedek's lectures and watched my lessons with interest.

The evening of the fourth day was the first evening that it had not rained. We left the road and sought shelter for the night in a clump of short, scrubby trees called oilthorn. Before the sun completely set, Melchizedek and I collected dead wood and stacked it to build a fire.

"This is a useful chaos power," said Melchizedek, lifting a damp branch and holding it at arms length. "May I borrow your emerald?" I handed it to him. He rotated the emerald so that he was holding it on its side. "the facets allow you to access the powers of the other colors," he told me. He held up the gem. "This is the power of the red." He looked at the branch. "Chaos Combust." There was a ripple of chaos power, and the branch burst into bright red flame that quickly turned yellow. He thrust it into the pile of kindling, and the fire licked up through the wood, drying it and setting it aflame.

Aleda squealed, "Oo cool!" She wriggled out of my jacket, jumped to the ground, and held out her paws to the warmth.

I waited until Melchizedek had sat down near the fire across from us, then slowly sat down, myself. Aleda chattered to him in her excitement. "Do you think that I could learn to use chaos power like that? I'm just a chao, but I can turned into a praying mantis with an emerald, so do you think I could?"

Melchizedek laughed. "Of course, Aleda. Chao can learn any chaos power they want. Are you bonded to the violet emerald?"

"Yeah." Aleda nodded. She looked up at me. "Would you let Melchizedek teach me? Please? Please?"

"As long as he does not mind taking on another apprentice," I said, meeting his eye.

He smiled. "Not a problem."

I opened my knapsack and pulled out a rations pack, but Melchizedek stopped me. "Wait. Since we have a fire, tonight's my treat." I put the food back, wondering if he planned to poison me. But he rummaged in his pack with enthusiasm, pulling out half a smoked ham, a loaf of bread wrapped in plastic, toasting forks, a bag of popcorn kernels, and a small flat pan with a lid for popping them.

Despite my misgivings, it was a good meal. Aleda was intrigued by the popcorn. When it began popping in the pan, she laughed and laughed. It seemed that I had neglected to show her the more amusing aspects of food. But then, I had never thought of food as amusing.

After the edge was gone from our appetites, and we were nibbling popcorn, I asked Melchizedek, "What is the strategic importance of this location?"

He tilted his head to one side. "What do you mean?"

I gestured to the trees around us. "We are invisible from the road, and the fire is small. It is as if you are hiding from enemies. I recognize the signs."

He ran a hand through his short spines and scratched one ear before answering. "You aren't the only one with enemies, Mecha."

At last! We had breached the subject of his true purpose in aiding me! "Why would a hedgehog like you have enemies?"

He gazed at me across the fire. "Tell me something, Mecha. Last winter, when you were fleeing the priests of Mun-Icytho. Why were they hunting you?"

"I killed members of their sect," I said stiffly. It was not something I cared to remember.

"Why did you do that?" he asked.

"They wanted to kill Aleda," I said. "And I told them the truth about their god."

Melchizedek leaned back. "You protected the innocent and spoke the truth. For that they hunted you for months. I am guilty of the same crimes."

Something within me snarled, and I thought of the robian girls and their worship of Leviathan. "Then why did you not speak against the robot cult four days ago?" I sounded more bitter than I had intended. "They are following a lie that will devour them."

Melchizedek studied me. "Why did you not tell them the truth, as you told the priests?"

This unexpected rebound of my question left me floundering. "Because ... they were ... they are too deep in. I told them what I could, and they did not listen. If they follow Leviathan and mutilate their bodies, nothing I said would have changed their minds."

Melchizedek nodded wearily. "I have known all those girls for many years. Every time I visited Morrowville, I warned them about the path they were taking. Every time they had slipped a little farther. And now they have gone from ignoring me to being deaf to the truth. Even when you spoke to them, they could not see what was in front of them. They are deaf and blind by choice."

My flash of anger vanished, leaving in its place a cold emptiness. I had seen robians die before. Sometimes they simply stopped eating. Other times they lost their minds and beat their brains out against a wall. The thought of those mobians willing choosing that path filled me with hopeless grief. I raised a hand and let it fall. "Is there no hope for them?"

"There is always hope," said Melchizedek. "The novelty will wear off. Some will begin to question the wisdom of metal limbs once they discover their shortcomings. The others in the cult will seek to keep them deceived, but that is where truthspeakers like you and I come in. We enter and offer escape. Those who are beginning to fight the blindness seek the light, even the dimmest of flickers."

There was a moment of silence. I watched the dancing flames. Aleda was seated against my knee, beginning to nod off. I picked her up and placed her in my coat. I felt her snuggle down and sigh against my torso.

I looked at Melchizedek, who was also gazing into the fire. "So who are your enemies?"

He smiled. "People who dislike the truth. They know that it's true, but they hate me for telling them. Many want me dead, so I take suitable precautions."

I looked at the fire. "Why not use your powers to destroy them?"

He shook his head. "I don't want anyone to die ... I only want everyone to know the truth."

It was not until some time later, when I was curled in my sleeping bag with Aleda in my arms, that it dawned on me. Melchizedek was not afraid of his enemies.

He was hiding me from them.

We were two days away from Viperdale when Melchizedek began teaching me to Chaos Control.

"It's the most fundamental of all the powers," Melchizedek explained, placing the violet emerald in my hands. "Controlling chaos is the first step in unlocking all of the powers. All I want you to do is pause time. You mentioned being able to do that once."

"Yes," I said, tilting the emerald onto its side.

It was late morning. It had rained heavily for a few hours, but now the precipitation had subsided and the clouds were thinning overhead. I looked down at Aleda in my coat and slowly unzipped it. "Aleda, I am undertaking a period of potentially hazardous training. I must not carry you until it is concluded."

"Okay Mecha." She scrambled out of my coat, and I reluctantly handed her to Melchizedek. He took her in his cupped hands. "Harm her and I will gut you," I told him.

He shook his head. "She is perfectly safe." He unzipped the top of his own knapsack, revealing a large pocket, and helped Aleda climb inside. "Oh, this is comfy," she remarked.

I watched to make sure that Melchizedek meant her no harm, and only turned my attention to the emerald when Melchizedek and Aleda fixed me with twin looks of expectancy. I knew enough about the Chaos Emeralds by now to know that the control powers were native to the ruling green. To Chaos Control, I had to use a facet of the violet to touch the power of the green.

I looked through the gem to the spark of light in its center. Its power warmed my hands. I had done this once ... I did what I remembered, pulled in my chaos field and said, "Chaos contr-"

I awoke on my face in the damp grass. Melchizedek was shaking me. "Mecha, wake up. Hush, Aleda, he's all right."

I lifted my head and sat up. My biofiber muscles trembled as if I had experienced a severe electrical shock, and my hands were hot where I still gripped the emerald. "What happened?" I asked.

Melchizedek knelt beside me. "Well, you teleported instead of stopping time."

"You did it backwards," Aleda piped up. "And when we found you, I thought you were dead!"

"I tried to use my chaos field the way I once did," I said. "It appears that something is still amiss."

Melchizedek frowned. "Let me borrow the emerald." I handed it to him. He held it above my head and said, "Chaos Aura." Instantly I was surrounded by a flickering, wavering bubble of energy. It was blue and fringed with red, and kept sending out tendrils toward the Chaos Emerald. After a few seconds it faded away.

"Interesting," I said, climbing to my feet. "So that is my chaos field."

"Yes." Melchizedek was deep in thought, one hand on his chin. "The blue shows a calm field, but the red indicates instability. When you use a Chaos Emerald with an unstable field, commands can backfire."

"How do I remedy this?" I asked, feeling ashamed and irritated.

He studied me, then said, "Take Aleda and try it again."

"But I may harm her!" I said.

He held Aleda up to me and let her grab the arm of my jacket. She hooked her claws into the fabric and swarmed up to my shoulder. "No you won't," said Melchizedek. "Instability in a field means a problem in the mind. If you are concerned about Aleda, it may effect your field."

I had no answer for that. Silently I stroked Aleda's head, then received the emerald from my teacher. Now I was concerned that I might faint again and somehow fall on Aleda, but said nothing. Trying to will my fear to not exist, I looked into the Chaos Emerald and said, "Chaos contr-"

I awoke on my back this time, with Aleda and Melchizedek looking down at me. My muscles were so weakened that I could hardly sit up. I tried to speak and found that the muscles in my jaws could not operate with enough precision to form words. I said to Aleda through our network, "Ask him what happened."

She looked at Melchizedek. "He's asking what happened."

"Well, the good news is that this time you stopped time," said Melchizedek, eyes twinkling, as if holding back laughter. "The bad news is that you stopped only yourself."

"How?" I forced the syllable over my numbed tongue.

Aleda was already explaining. "You shot yourself with chaos energy, boom! Right in the face. And as you fell down, you just stopped in midair and stayed there for a minute. Then you sped up and fell down all the way."

"Aleda had the presence of mind to jump free when you blasted yourself," said Melchizedek. He plucked the vile emerald out of the grass where I had dropped it, and touched my forehead with his free hand. "Chaos Heal," he murmured. I felt a gentle wave of warmth cascade through me, repairing my stunned body. When Melchizedek withdrew, I asked, "How many abilities do you have?" He smiled and didn't answer.

Aleda rubbed my arm with her paws. Her red eyes were anxious. "You'll kill yourself next, Mecha. Don't play with the emerald anymore."

Melchizedek looked at her, then at me, and laughed. It was a rolling laugh, the kind that invited everyone around to join in. Aleda laughed, too, and I found myself smiling against my will.

"It's the violet emerald, of course!" said Melchizedek, holding it up. "The violet favors a female user. For you to use it, Mecha, we have to filter the power." He crouched and held out the emerald to Aleda. "Here you are, little lady. Let's have a look at your large form."

She cast a look of sheer ecstasy at me, and I nodded. She grabbed the emerald and bit it.

Her little body melted into the white light of chaos energy, expanded and reformed into a four-foot tall insect made of gleaming blue metal. Her eyes, however, were chao eyes. She opened her wing-shields and fluttered into the air, clicking her curved sickle-arms together. "Hooray! I love being a mantis!" She landed on one leg, spun in a circle and dropped to four of her six.

I stood up, touched Aleda's smooth arm and said, "Chaos control."

Chaos pulsed. The world froze.

"We did it!" Aleda squealed.

"Yes," I said, looking at the frozen Melchizedek. It was a peculiar sensation, holding a chaos control. I felt the energy pulsing once a second, slowly speeding up. I stood there until it reached its peak, then the control died and the world resumed moving.

Melchizedek applauded. "Well done! As you see, sometimes it's impossible to control chaos without help."

I barely listened. I was in the midst of analyzing the pattern of chaos pulses and writing a program to calculate them out and pinpoint the exact nanosecond of each.

It required eight more chaos controls before my program met my satisfaction. The timing was the same every time, as well as the mathematical formula. It was precisely controlled chaos.

Melchizedek was excited. "Excellent! You're a fast learner, Mecha my friend. Shall we try chaos relocate?"

"Yes," I said. Success had left me with a warm rush, and now with chaos control captured, I was eager for more.

I touched Aleda's claw, pictured a spot on the grass five feet away, and said, "Chaos relocate."

I experienced the odd sensation of chaos energy building to a spike, tearing through me from eyes to ankles, and bleeding away into the ground.

I awoke in Aleda's clawed arms. My eyes were full of thick tears, and my hand had fused into Aleda's arm. Melchizedek knelt beside me. "Good grief, Mecha." He withdrew a cloth from his pack and gently wiped my eyes. I saw fluid and my own silver nanite blood on it.

"Mecha," said Aleda softly, "please don't use chaos power anymore. Please." Her large eyes glistened with anxiety and pain.

I looked at my hand, melted to her arm in a lump. "Does that hurt?"

"A little," she admitted.

Melchizedek laid a hand on Aleda, and a hand on my arm, and again I felt the warm, soothing touch of healing power. My eyes cleared, and my hand unstuck from Aleda. I saw a red wound on her arm briefly-then the healing power fused it over without a mark. That vision hurt me worse than the chaos power. I had harmed Aleda.

I stood up. "No more, Melchizedek," I said. "I cannot put Aleda in harm's way. I will not risk her safety."

He looked at me and nodded. "Yes, I understand. Once we reach Viperdale, there are some other methods that we can try."

We collected our gear and traveled for the rest of the day in silence. A chao once more, Aleda rode in my coat, occasionally reaching up to stroke my chin with a remorseful paw. The Chaos Emerald stayed in my pack, where it belonged.

A day later, in a gray drizzle, we reached the Viper Canyon. I had seen pictures of it. It was a winding canyon that circled and doubled back on itself, snake-like, a mile deep with a green river in the bottom. But photos had not prepared me for the sheer vastness. Standing on the edge of the cliff, looking at the far wall which was partially hidden in mist, I sensed the amount of oxygen between me and it, and how far down that river truly was. I felt small and insignificant, and the feeling frightened me. I may suffer from feeling worthless, but that is different from confronting a landmark that has been there for millennia.

Aleda took one look and dove down in my coat, where she remained, shivering. Melchizedek looked out at the canyon and inhaled deeply. "It's like the ocean," he said. "Always changing." After we had stood there for a while, he turned and led the way along the canyon rim. Presently we found a gravel path, and followed it away from the canyon toward a deep green patch of trees in the distance.

Viperdale was not a large town, for its population hovered around two thousand, but it was spread out all along the canyon. Melchizedek led me along its main street, slick and shining in the wet, and I kept an eye out for somewhere to shelter. After being on the road for so long, and collecting the grime of travel, I was ready for warmth and possibly a good wash. But Melchizedek ignored the little shops, and led me away from the commercial district and out into the residential area. At first the houses were clustered together, but the further we walked, the more they spread apart, and became larger.

At last, to my relief, Melchizedek turned and entered the driveway of a low Mobian house. Its roof was the typical earthen dome, with rounded windows and doors, like a rabbit burrow on top of the ground. To my surprise, Melchizedek took a key out of his pocket and unlocked the front door. "You live here?" I asked.

He smiled. "No. I visit so much that my friends had a key made. Come on in."

We entered a large room paved with wood in the Mobian fashion. It was warm and smelled faintly of some meal I could not identify. I ran a scan and found that the house had a full basem*nt, fifteen bedrooms and five bathrooms. "Who lives here?" I asked, noting that the entire house was empty.

"A big group, eight at last count," said Melchizedek, hanging his coat by the door. "They share the rent and chores. Come with me, you can use the rear bedroom."

This proved to be a spacious room with an en-suite bathroom. Melchizedek went off to his own room down the hall, and I was free to let Aleda roam around, and bathe both of us. My bath consisted of dipping a sponge in warm water and wiping off the mud. For Aleda, I filled the bathtub and let her play in the hot water. "This is a nice place," she said from down in the bathtub. "Will we stay very long?"

"I do not know," I said. "Perhaps here my chaos training can be continued without harming anyone."

Aleda's eyes appeared over the bathtub rim. "Mecha, please don't. You'll hurt yourself more."

I looked at her as I scrubbed at the grime between my fingers. "Aleda, this is my single chance to learn about chaos power. How many other Chaos Wizards do you think would stoop to teaching an artificial being to utilize these abilities?"

She didn't answer. After a moment she ducked back into the bathtub, where I heard her splashing in a subdued sort of way. "Use soap," I told her. "I do not wish to hold you down and scrub you." She giggled.

Aleda's idea of using soap, as I discovered when I checked on her, was to etch her name into it with a claw, and sail it up and down the tub. I grabbed a nearby washcloth and scrubbed her, paying attention to her paws and feet. Afterwards her blue fur was deep and brilliant, and I had been splashed from head to waist. I wrapped her in a towel and placed her on a chair, and used another towel to dry myself and the floor.

I located an old hair dryer under the sink, and blew her dry, a process she enjoyed. Once dry, her velvety fur gleamed like brushed steel.

I was buffing myself in front of the bathroom mirror when there came a knock at the door. "Come in," I said, setting aside the towel.

Melchizedek looked in, his spines damp from his own recent shower. "The Twins are home. May I introduce you?"

"Certainly," I said, scooping up Aleda.

Chapter 14: New faces

Chapter Text

Melchizedek led us to the long hallway and into a huge room that served as both kitchen and dining room. Here were two white leopards, one busy making a sandwich, the other rummaging in a cupboard. They turned as we walked in, smiling with welcome as they saw Melchizedek. "Is this the apprentice?" said the sandwich leopard, blinking at me. His smiled wavered for a fraction of a second, as I saw him battle some innate prejudice against robots, then he stepped forward and shook my hand. "I'm Tear, and that's Rip," he said, jerking his head at his brother. "We're the Spotters of the team, and that's not because of our fur, ha ha."

"I am Mecha, and this is my chao, Aleda," I said, shaking Tear's hand, then Rip's. Both cats had a blue eye and a brown eye. I cross-referenced the word "spotter" in my databanks, and turned up nothing remarkable.

They ushered us to a wooden table ten feet in diameter, and to my surprise I found myself in a chair with a soda in hand and a plate of cookies in front of me. Aleda grabbed on in either paw, but put one back when I gave her a stern look. "Don't be greedy," I told her in the privacy of our network. "There are plenty for all."

She bit into her cookie as she replied the same way, "I haven't had cookies in forever! Is it okay if I eat a bunch?"

"No," I replied. "Limit yourself to four. I do not want you to take ill while we are guests in a strange location." As this matter seemed sufficiently handled, I turned my attention to the twins and Melchizedek.

They were deep in conversation about 'the business'. The twins took turns to relate the statistics of people who had passed through or been aided, and about someone who had just gotten out of the hospital. It sounded rather dull for someone like Melchizedek, but he was thoroughly engrossed.

I ceased paying attention, and nibbled my cookie. It contained chocolate, a potent fatty candy made from a type of nut from South Mobius. It was nauseatingly sweet, but Aleda could not get enough of it.

I attended to the conversation again, for Rip was talking about an enemy in a lowered voice. He spoke of 'the dark ones', who were either infiltrating the operation, or were trying to subvert it through other means.

"I figured you were having problems," said Melchizedek. "One has been trailing me ever since I left Morrowville. It seems that there are high stakes involved with this apprentice." He cast me a glance, and I met it. Suddenly his efforts to keep us hidden at night made more sense. An enemy was following us.

"Who are these people you speak of?" I asked. "And why would they be interested in me?"

The twins looked at each other uneasily. Melchizedek turned in his seat to address me, and his face was serious. "There are many unseen powers at work on Mobius, some for good, and some for evil. But they orchestrate an ongoing battle in which every soul is a hostage, held captive by the enemy, and sought to be freed by the good. The twins, here have the ability to see the agents of the enemy. They are our spotters, or seers."

I shifted uneasily in my seat. It sounded much too cosmic to be true, but the utmost gravity in Melchizedek's voice said otherwise. I looked at Aleda, who was munching away at her third cookie and listening, wide-eyed. The idea of something tracking us ... I shook my head. "But if these things are invisible, how do you know that they are there?"

"How do you know that chaos power exists?" said Melchizedek.

"I see its effects," I replied.

Melchizedek nodded. "The dark ones cannot be seen, but their presence is always felt."

I tried to grasp this concept. I had seen so many strange things, and met so many strange people, that I did not know whether to accept this or not.

Further discussion was interrupted by the sound of the front door opening, and several new voices exclaiming in relief about being out of the rain. Melchizedek and the twin leopards rose from their seats, and I did the same out of courtesy. But the as the newcomers entered, I realized that this was really to keep the furniture from being damaged.

The first person through the door was a red panda in a vest and socks. She looked around at us, saw Melchizedek and screamed. She charged at him and nearly knocked him down in an enthusiastic hug. Four other Mobians entered the kitchen, recognized Melchizedek, and reacted the same way. For several minutes there was a lot of squealing, jumping, hugging and back-slapping. The whole group was obviously fond of Melchizedek, and had not seen him in some time. The twins returned to their seats, grinning, and I did the same. Introductions would come soon enough.

The newcomers busied themselves about the kitchen, and they piled more snacks on the table. More chips, dip, assorted vegetables, and additional plates of cookies. To my later regret, I paid no attention to them or their proximity to Aleda.

Melchizedek waited until everyone was seated around the table, then rose and said, "I would like to introduce you all to Mecha, my apprentice, and his chao, Aleda." I stood and bowed, and Aleda waved. Various voices welcomed me, and smiles flashed from every direction. Embarrassed, I sat down again.

Melchizedek introduced everyone to me. The red panda was named Flashi, and addition there was Charr, a small blue dragon, complete with wings which were tucked to his sides. There was a small hawk named Distina, who carried her right wing in a sling, and a very young vixen with black fur named Dusk. Melchizedek looked around. "Where is Trech?"

"He iss working late," said Charr, speaking with a pronounced hiss. "He told uss to sstart home because he wass sseeing to the wounds of the child who fell in the canyon yesterday."

"Is she all right?" asked Distina. I looked at her broken wing. Interesting.

"She'll be fine," said Flashi. She spoke very fast. "I was with her today when the doctor set her leg. He said that the break was clean and the clawmarks will heal without scarring so don't worry, Distina, nobody can blame you."

"She was falling so fast," said the hawk mournfully. "I had to use my claws, I couldn't have caught her otherwise ..."

"Sshe is alive, that'ss what matterss," said Charr.

This group fascinated me. They displayed the same camaraderie that I had seen in the Knothole Freedom Fighters-more like a family than unrelated species. To my relief, none of them seemed to recognize me, although I caught a few sidelong glances, mostly at my elbow and hand resting on the table, with its lack of visible joints.

Flashi turned to me. "Can I ask you a personal question? How long have you been a robot? It must have been a bad accident for you to be nothing but implants."

There was a sudden silence. I knew from her tone that she had not meant to offend, but the words themselves were extremely rude. Everyone glared at her. For some reason I felt a warm flicker ... I had been accepted to such an extent that the group was indignant on my behalf. Flashi seemed to realize this, and shrank under their eyes. "I mean, uh, sorry," she mumbled.

"No offense taken," I said. "I am not a robian, nor was I in an accident. I am a model of robot that is working through androidal stages toward becoming organic."

"Wow," breathed Rip, peering at me as if he had not seen me properly before. "Do you use the synthetic plastic designs?"

"No," I said, mildly surprised that someone knew about android models. "It is my own nanite-based design."

"Sso," said Charr, "if you are a robot, or an android, why are the dark oness interested in you?"

"How can they even touch a mechanical creature?" asked Distina, whistling a bit through her beak.

They all looked at Melchizedek, who looked at me. "Because this robot has a soul."

I felt as if he had punched me in the head. A soul? I knew that my brain was more or less alive, but a soul was something that transcended mere neurons and cells. I had assumed that I had no soul since my first conscious thought. But they must be mistaken. Why should I believe these strangers? They knew nothing about me.

"A soul cannot be measured or detected," I said. "How can anyone be certain that I possess one?"

"You are capable of using chaos power," Melchizedek said. "And you have a conscience. Soulless beings lack such capabilities."

I tried to formulate an argument for this, but I realized that if I had a soul, then my arguments were flawed, because I knew no other beings who lacked souls. "I require more information on this subject before I can form an opinion," I said stiffly.

Dusk, the young fox, had not said a word this whole time. She had watched Aleda with interest, however, with one finger in her mouth. Now she turned her head, ears pricked toward the front door. Charr glanced at her and said, "Trecheon iss finally here."

A moment later the door opened, admitting a gust of wind and a hedgehog in a dripping raincoat. He hung it in the entry and entered the kitchen, where he picked up a towel and dried off his right arm, which was robotic. This was a functional arm, for it had all of its paneling and was tarnished with heavy use.

"How is Melly?" Melchizedek asked.

Trecheon jumped and looked up. "Salem! What are you doing here?"

"I brought my apprentice here for training," said Melchizedek, nodding toward me. "Trecheon, this is Mecha, and Mecha, this is Trecheon."

The hedgehog's eyes fixed on me and darkened at once. He drew a breath, as if about to speak, but thought better of it and carefully hung his towel in the sink. "Melly is fine," he said, speaking clearly and precisely. "She had scratched off one of her bandages, and really didn't want to be alone. I left her with Minx."

At this point Aleda touched my arm. I looked down at her. Her mouth and paws were covered with crumbs, and there was a look of discomfort in her eyes. "Mecha," she whispered through our network, "I have to go to the bathroom!"

I rose from the table and picked her up. "Thank you all for your hospitality," I said to the group, but mostly to Melchizedek. "My chao is weary, however, so we shall retire for the night. Good evening."

"Good night, Mecha," they chorused.

As I hurried toward the rear of the house, I said over the network, "Aleda, what did you eat?"

"Everything," she said unhappily. "I ate too many cookies, and the dip was really good ... it seems yucky now."

I opened the door to our room and took her to the toilet. "I told you, four cookies, Aleda. You brought this unpleasant consequence upon yourself."

Aleda did not leave the bathroom for four hours. I spent the time out in the bedroom, building profiles of each of Melchizedek's friends. Trecheon had recognized me. I delved into my databanks to try to discover if I had ever had dealings with a red hedgehog. I unearthed some painful memories of my Robotropolis years (I had kept meticulous records of my killings), but none that might relate to this hedgehog. Maybe I had killed one of his friends or family members. I had grown so used to being among strangers that meeting someone who remembered my past was unsettling and grieving. He would probably inform the others of my identity, thus destroying my changes of becoming friends with them.

One grows tired of being eternally hated.

When Aleda finally emerged from the bathroom, she was so exhausted that she grabbed her acorn, cuddled up to me and fell asleep at once. I had spread the bed's coverlet on the floor to avoid slashing the mattress with my spines, and tucked her into this before lying down beside her. I had no need of sleep. A brief rest every three days suffices, generally, if I have done no strenuous activity. Besides, I have developed an unsettling capacity for dreaming, and I did not want to relive Robotropolis that night.

I stroked Aleda's soft head and listened to her breathe. Here lay the only creature ever to love me without first hating me. I will admit that I am very hateable, particularly in light of my assassin design and programming, neither of which I have been able to destroy.

Lying there, I could think of a dozen ways to kill everyone in the house, and with slightly more thought, half a dozen ways to make it look like an accident. But what was the point? Killing was so easy. Far harder was the creation and maintenance of life. That was my new challenge. Life, not death. I was almost amazed at this new, feeble desire within myself ... the desire to please others, and be liked. I say almost, because it was a real desire and I could not laugh at it. Melchizedek had given me his approval, and I craved more. Robotnik had never approved of me to the point of praise. Melchizedek was different. I felt in him a kindness I had only seen in Aleda and Shadow. Why he had chosen me, I had no idea. I thought about my search for the Master Designer. If Melchizedek knew about some sort of invisible war, surely he could direct me to the creator of all life.

A little after 6 AM there came a soft knock at the door. I rose and opened it, and discovered Melchizedek standing there. He was barefoot and carried his boots in one hand, trying to keep quiet. "Good morning," he whispered. "Would you like to do some chaos exercises with me?"

"Yes," I said, feeling a lightening of the heart. Despite whatever Trecheon may have said, Melchizedek was still kind and still willing to teach me. I picked up the violet Chaos Emerald, left the door open, so Aleda would know that I was gone, and followed Melchizedek.

He led me down the hall, around a corner and down a stairwell. We arrived in a vast basem*nt room the size of the upstairs living room. The walls were whitewashed concrete, and the floor was carpeted in three colors, obviously leftover from various projects upstairs.

Melchizedek sat on the stairs and pulled on his boots. "This is the sparring room. They also set up game tables on the nights that the kids are here."

I looked at the chips in the paint, and at the fingerprints and footprints. This room saw much use.

"Last night," I said, "what did Trecheon say about me?"

Melchizedek shot me a swift look. "He was that obvious, was he? He didn't say anything in front of the others. I spoke to him in private."

I turned away and touched a dent in the wall.

Melchizedek spoke behind me. "You committed no crime against him, Mecha. It is Dr. Robotnik whom he hates."

I looked over my shoulder. "Oh. That is a relief."

He rose to his feet, crossed the room, and opened a small cupboard in the wall. From it he withdrew a white glowing sphere wrapped in a cloth. Carrying it in both hands, he brought it to me. "Do you know what this is, Mecha?"

I looked at the sphere. The surface gleamed and shone with multiple soft colors. It was extraordinarily beautiful, and I felt the odd urge to own it, myself, despite whatever it may cost. With an effort I tried to identify it.

"It is a pearl," I said at last.

He nodded. "Right. A Chaos Pearl from the fire rift in the Ausif ocean." He smiled briefly. "The story of how I got it is a long one. Remind me to tell it at dinner tonight. The important thing is that Chaos Pearls are made by a certain oyster that feeds on the energy field in Mobius's core. The waste energy is fused into mass, and rolled into a pearl inside the oyster."

I looked at the pearl, which was bigger than a Chaos Emerald. "The oyster must have been quite large."

"And vicious," said Melchizedek, nodding. "Chaos Pearls are worth billions, if a price can be found at all. I thought that we might work with it this morning, seeing as the Chaos Emerald refuses to cooperate."

"What if I damage it?" I asked, wondering how one repaired a billion dollar pearl.

Melchizedek grinned. "They are indestructible. That's why they're worth so much. Here." He placed it in my hands.

We went through the basic exercises that he had taught me; holding it various ways, stabilizing my aura, feeling the power within the pearl from specific angles. The pearl was docile, its power easy to manage as opposed to a Chaos Emerald. For the first time I found my training intuitive.

I chaos controlled, and the pearl did exactly what I wanted. Then we tried chaos relocating, and I successfully teleported across the room three times. The pearl was so easy to use! I thought of the emerald with dread. I did not want to go back to using its unreliable shifting frequencies.

By this time others were awake in the house. Charr, the blue dragonkin, was sitting on the basem*nt steps with a black metal cup of coffee. He breathed on it from time to time to keep it hot. He watched our activities with a bored interest that implied that I was not the first student trained by Melchizedek.

We stopped for a break after an hour and a half, and joined Charr on the steps. Melchizedek went upstairs to retrieve some coffee for us, and I sat with the pearl in my hands.

"He hass trained all of uss with that," said Charr, nodding at the pearl. "What iss your focal power?"

"What?" I said.

"Your focal power is a certain ability that is unique to your consciousness," Charr explained, his forked tongue flicking out when he drew a breath. "Mine iss a focused beam of fire." He nonchalantly breathed on his coffee, which boiled instantly. This revelation did not surprise me in the least.

"We have not yet progressed that far in my training," I said. "I am still learning the basics. I have difficulties controlling the violet Chaos Emerald."

"Melchizedek sayss that there are eassier wayss of using chaoss power than the emeraldss," said Charr. "However, only Dussk hass been able to learn to use her chaoss field as well as the pearl."

"Perhaps because she is young," I said with a shrug.

Charr grinned, showing pointed teeth. "She iss a kitsune. Sshe cannot use chaoss emeraldss because of her race. Melchizedek bought her from a circuss ssideshow in East Mobiuss."

"Bought her?" I said, thinking with horror of the young fox in a cage.

"Yess," said Charr. "Jusst as he bought me from sslavery in Ssouth Mobiuss." He held out his right arm, palm upwards, displaying a spot where the scales had been pared away and numbers branded into his flesh. "All of uss here were purchased in ssome way," said Charr. "Melchizedek brought uss here, gave uss our freedom, and taught uss to run the orphanage. How hass he bought you?"

"He has not, that I know of," I said, running the memories of chaos training through my mind. "He offered to train me and I accepted."

Charr frowned. "Perhapss he hass not purchased you yet. Who ownss you?"

"No one," I said. But as I spoke, an image of Dr. Robotnik rose in my mind's eye. I had rejected his service and left him, but as far as ownership ... I had seen the paper that claimed me as his own creation. "No one at all," I repeated vehemently.

Melchizedek returned, descending the basem*nt steps with a steaming ceramic cup in either hand. He handed me one and sat on the step above Charr and me. I sipped my coffee. Cream and honey. How had he known what I liked?

"Ssalem," said Charr, "why is it that you have not yet bought Mecha?"

Melchizedek met my eye as his sipped his own coffee. "The issue had not come up."

"But why should you have to purchase anyone?" I said, feeling a hot anger at even admitting, however, vaguely, that Robotnik still had a claim on me. "Does that make you the master of many slaves, if you own everyone in the house?"

"I buy to set free," said Melchizedek quietly. "Do not say that I own them all ... say rather that I have adopted them."

His voice and words soothed my anger, revealing its source; my deep shame at having anything to do with Robotnik. I drank my coffee slowly, eyes on the floor, as if to keep my shame from staring through them.

When I felt that I had mastered it, I looked up to see Melchizedek watching me with a thoughtful expression. I had the uncanny suspicion that he had read my thoughts.

Dusk appeared at the top of the stairs, wearing a nightgown and with her thumb in her mouth. Charr saw her and rose to his feet. "Sseems that ssomeone wantss breakfasst." He climbed the stairs, picked up the little fox in one arm, and carried her toward the kitchen.

"Odd for a reptile to be so fond of a mammal," I remarked.

"Charr had been through a lot before I brought him here," said Melchizedek. "His own family was stripped from him by the slavers. He took Dusk to heart like one of his own brood."

I found nothing to say to this, and drained my cup instead.

"Eat some breakfast," Melchizedek told me. "Then meet me on the back porch. We'll do the gamut of powers today."

I was glad for a chance to escape him for a while. Melchizedek's very openness of heart made me uncomfortable, and I had the not-so-buried shame of my old, yet current master to deal with.

In the kitchen, I found Dusk and Aleda at the table, each eating bowls of oatmeal and talking as Charr cooked something at the stove. Dusk clammed up the second she saw me. I was surprised that she could talk. Aleda said, "Hi Mecha! Can I play with Dusk out back today? She has a tricycle and a slide!"

"Certainly," I said, chiseling oatmeal out of the pot on the stove. Charr was frying bacon in a pan, but the stove was turned off. He was breathing on it instead.

I ate slowly and thoughtfully, although this may have been because the oatmeal had the consistency of glue. I silently vowed to make my own breakfast the following morning. Then I picked up Aleda, and we went looking for the back door.

Chapter 15: Shadows and runes

Chapter Text

By the time Melchizedek was finished with me that day, I had learned something new about chaos energy. Prolonged use brings a severe fatigue. By six PM, I barely had the strength to force nourishment past my lips before dragging myself to my room and collapsing on the blanket on the floor.

Melchizedek awakened me at dawn once more for practice. I passed another day of intense practice and training, until I collapsed into bed again that night.

According to my tally, ten days passed in this manner. It seemed like much longer. I scarcely saw Aleda or the other Mobians who inhabited the house, and spent my waking hours in the miasma of chaos power. Melchizedek was a firm teacher, but always kind. In those ten days I practiced many of the abilities that he had showed me. But when we switched to the Chaos Emerald, I could only stop time. It was our emerald sessions that I found the most draining.

On the morning of the tenth day, I was so tired that it took Melchizedek and Aleda both to awaken me. I fumbled through morning practice, and when time came for real lessons, I discovered that my brain had undertaken to block all chaos-related information from my memory. I stared at the pearl in my hands, and was incapable of using it.

"Melchizedek," I said, "I cannot remember how to start."

He laid a hand on my shoulder and looked into my eyes. "You are exhausted, my friend. Go get some rest. We'll take a few days off."

I returned to bed and slept for another six hours.

I lounged around the house for the rest of the day, relishing my total inactivity and spending time with Aleda, who had missed me terribly.

There was a playset in the rear of the yard, which was a quarter of an acre square. Aleda taught me to use the swings, but only when we were by ourselves. We did most of our talking in the privacy of the swingset, she in one, myself in another.

"Dusk is a really powerful kitsune," Aleda told me. "In the circus where she used to be, they'd make her do illusions for people. That's what her power is. Illusions. But it hurt her mind, so Charr and Melchizedek have had to work with her a lot. She's really nice, though. I really like Rip and Tear, because they're funny. But they talk about scary things. The Dark Ones." Aleda shivered. "Apparently a few of them have been hanging around the house, and Rip and Tear keep talking about defenses. Melchizedek always gets real serious. Flashi and Distina seem to handle that stuff. Oh, and you know Trecheon, the red hedgehog? He used to be a mers-en-arry, and he worked for Robotnik, but a long time ago. So now he hates Robotnik. Isn't that weird? To work for somebody and hate them? I don't understand that. Anyway, can we go to the canyon tomorrow?"

I knew all too well how it was to work for one whom you hated.

The following day was clear and warm, and I was rested enough to notice.

Aleda and I went for a walk along the edge of the canyon. Along the way, we discovered a footpath that descended the canyon along the north wall. We traveled this, pausing at each switchback to admire the view, and to let Aleda catch her breath. I had given her my Chaos Emerald, so I was accompanied by a blue metal praying mantis that frolicked like a small child.

"Mecha!" she said, planting her four back feet and leaning out over the edge. "Think if I jumped off, I could fly all the way to the bottom?"

I pinged the canyon with radar. "It is six hundred ninety-two feet, Aleda. At four hundred feet you would become fatigued, and the resulting landing would shatter your carapace, if not kill you outright." I spoke calmly, but seeing her so near the edge of such a drop sent icy tingles through my nervous system and made my hands sweat. But my explanation had its intended effect, for Aleda backed away from the edge. "Okay, I think I'll just walk."

We descended another twist and turn of the path. It was pleasant to use my muscles rather than my mind. Gazing out at the endless rock walls and distant river was somehow restful. It was also very quiet, aside from the breeze in the grasses that grew along the path.

Suddenly Aleda said, "I miss Shadow and Nox."

Shadow. The thought of him was a searing pain in my chest. My friend, my corrupt creation. At our last meeting he had told me how close he was to succumbing to Mekion, and I had not heard from him since. I tried not to think about him, because doing so led only to self-loathing and black despair. I knew how powerful Mekion was, and moreover, exactly what he was, for I had made him. If Shadow was dead in a ditch somewhere, it was my fault.

"I miss them as well, Aleda," I said quietly.

We continued on, descending deeper and deeper into the canyon. It grew warmer, but the breeze persisted, rising from the cooler depths down by the river. Here and there a tree grew, its roots clutching cracks in the rocks. Small birds twittered from their shelter as we passed.

"I'm tired," Aleda said, limping on all six legs. She spat out her emerald, shrank back into a chao, and held up her arms.

I lifted her and the damp emerald. "You carry it," I told her, setting her on my shoulder.

"Okay," she said. "Ahh, this is nicer."

"For you," I said, feigning irritation. In reality I was glad to carry her and keep her from a lethal fall.

"Hey," she said, "why do they call Melchizedek 'Salem'?"

"I do not know," I said. "A nickname, perhaps."

"I'll ask Dusk," said Aleda. "Wouldn't it be funny to have a dragon for your dad?"

"You have an android as yours," I pointed out.

Aleda shrugged. "That's not weird. We look alike and can use the network. But Dusk has fur and Charr has scales. And he breathes fire."

"Typical of his species," I said.

We continued to detail the peculiarities of our new acquaintances as the river drew closer and the canyon walls rose higher. We were delving into Distina's speed-flight, and whether it was natural or chaos-aided, when I suddenly sensed danger. I whirled around. Aleda clutched my shoulder-plate and the emerald. There was nothing on the path behind us. It was sunlit and innocent. But Aleda felt it, too, for she gasped over the network, "Oh Mecha, hide, hide!"

"It is a cliff," I snapped over the network. "There is no shelter!" But I pressed myself flat against the rock wall, presenting a smaller target for anyone above us on the path. I launched every tracking program I possessed. Infrared and biotracking detected nothing larger than a bird all the way to the top of the canyon, but that did not rule out robots. I cycled scans. Nothing mechanical pinged, but that meant nothing. Robo Knux and I had perfected foiling each other's scanners for years.

"Can you Chaos Control us back to Melchizedek's?" Aleda whispered in my head.

"Not without the pearl," I replied. "I cannot accomplish a teleport with the violet emerald. I would only harm us."

There was no sound, no motion, nothing tangible. But something was moving closer. A feeling like panic rose in me, sending energy to my limbs and making my heart race. All of my scans registered nothing, yet Aleda and I were being hunted. She quivered and moaned, pressing herself against the side of my head. If I ran, I became a target, but my body was screaming for me to flee and save us through speed. I tried to apply logic to the situation, but it fled me. There was nothing logical about instant fear of nothing.

I found myself running. The fear was blinding agony. I had to run or die. So I ran with the speed built into my body. As I plunged down the path, I continued to scan and re-scan, trying to pinpoint something, anything. But there was nothing! Why were we so afraid? Was this one of the Dark Ones that the others had talked about? If so, how does one outrun a spirit?

I sought to bridle my fear. We were three hundred feet from the canyon bottom, and a fall would be fatal. What if the enemy meant to run us to our deaths? I scanned again, slowing to a jog. Nothing on any of my scans. But Aleda squeaked and pointed. "Something's up by that rock! There's a shadow on the grass ... but I can't see what's there."

I saw the shadow, as if something was standing on the path that the sun could not pass through. I scanned it and ruled out a chameleon or a cloaking device. "Nothing is there," I whispered to Aleda. "Nothing that my scans can detect."

"It's one of the Dark Ones," she whimpered. "Oh Mecha, teleport us, please please please!"

For a wild second I considered it. But I had not once teleported successfully while using the emerald. Even my training sessions in the yard had failed, including one painful incident when I teleported myself two feet into the ground, and had to liquify myself in order to avoid being crushed to death. I had required twenty minutes of healing afterwards. The idea of attempting a teleport here, with a deadly fall so near at hand, and with Aleda's life on the line, was out of the question.

The shadow moved, fading in our direction, cast by nothing. I backed slowly down the path, feeling my skin prickle with sweat. "Mecha," Aleda whispered in my head, "there's a guy down by the river. Maybe he could help us!"

I glanced down the cliff and saw a hare sitting on a stone shelf with a fishing pole, oblivious to us.

The idea that we were not alone was an encouraging thought. I plunged down the last several bends of the path, thinking that surely an invisible being would not attack a group of three.

But my flight was checked midway by assistance of a different sort. I felt a wash of chaos energy, and Melchizedek appeared in a golden shimmer of light on the bend below me. "Mecha!" he exclaimed, holding out both arms to block my way. "No further!"

I had never been so glad to see anyone in my entire existence. I skidded to a halt, reaching up to keep Aleda from pitching off my shoulder. "There is something following us," I panted, and was disgusted to hear a tremor in my voice.

"I know," said Melchizedek, and oddly enough, he glared down at the hare who was fishing. The hare had turned and was looking up at us quizzically.

"Hide Aleda," Melchizedek whispered. "Out of sight, quick!"

I snatched Aleda off my shoulder and clutched her to my chest, shielding her with my arms. Melchizedek pushed me back, away from the edge of the cliff and out of view of the hare.

"But what about the thing pursuing us?" I whispered, craning my neck to peer up the cliff overhead.

Melchizedek turned to me. I had never seen him look like that before ... his eyes burned, as if glowing, his spines bristled, and he radiated power like heat from a stove. "Don't you see?" he whispered urgently. "It's a trap, and you've fallen into it. Teleport home."

"But I cannot!"

"I am with you now." He stepped up and placed his hands over my eyes. Oddly enough, I immediately knew the location of the Chaos Emerald. It was pressed between Aleda and my body. I felt her heart beating under my wrists, seeming to mingle with the chaos energy. Then the energy became slow and simplified, soothed somehow by Melchizedek hands on me.

"Chaos relocate," I said.

When he uncovered my eyes, we were standing on the front steps of the house, just as I had pictured it.

We did not speak until we were indoors. Melchizedek shut the door behind us and held out his hand. I placed the Chaos Emerald on his palm. Whispering under his breath, he passed the tip around the four sides of the door, and traced some sort of pattern in the air in front of us. For a second a symbol flashed in the air, as if he had bent a lightning bolt into a rune, then it vanished.

"The door is warded," said Melchizedek. "They cannot reach either of you while you are in this house."

I stood there, staring speechlessly at the door, and my teacher. The events of the last ten minutes were beyond my comprehension.

Melchizedek led me into the kitchen, which thankfully was deserted, and pulled out a chair at the table for me. I sat down, and watched as the hedgehog strode around the kitchen, collecting the ingredients for a hot drink. I stared without seeing. The departing terror had left in its wake a numb sleepiness, like shock. I had not been so frightened in a long time. I set Aleda on the table. She sat beside my elbow, limp and drained-looking.

I did not register Melchizedek's movements until he had seated himself across from us and slid two steaming mugs to Aleda and me. "Drink it," he said. "It will help."

I sipped the liquid. It was chocolate with some type of spice in it, perhaps nutmeg. Aleda tasted hers, and her eyes lit up. She had developed quite a sweet tooth during our sojourn here.

By the time I had drank half my cup's contents, I was indeed feeling better. The numbness left my body, and my mind cleared. I became aware that Melchizedek was watching both of us closely, and rolling the Chaos Emerald back and forth under his fingertips.

"What actually happened out there?" I asked.

Melchizedek gazed at me. "A trap was laid to harm the two of you."

"Who was the rabbit?" Aleda asked. "Was he bad?"

"You probably didn't notice," said Melchizedek, "but there was no line on his fishing pole and his tacklebox was empty. However, he had a large net. Overly large for bank fishing, to my mind."

A shiver touched my shoulders. "Is that why you instructed me to hide Aleda?"

"Yes." Melchizedek's brow furrowed. "The Dark Ones are especially interested in you, Mecha. They do not want you to complete your journey. They will do everything in their power to hinder or destroy you."

"What do you know of my journey?" I asked, startled. I had not mentioned my quest to him yet.

"Much," said Melchizedek. "I shadowed you last winter, remember? You had not yet begun to see, and escaped their clutches by a hair. You now see a little more clearly, but your eyes will not become clear until you locate the Master Designer." His voice dropped to a mutter, as if he were thinking aloud. "I must equip you the best that I can for the journey itself ... I foresee a long, dark road for you both, and I pray that it is not too much for your hearts to bear ..."

His eyes cleared, and his voice returned to normal. "Mecha, there is a procedure which will allow you to use any Chaos Emerald as if it were a pearl. But it is intricate and painful. I will show you what I mean, and you may decide whether to have it done or not."

I finished my chocolate, and saw that Aleda had finished hers and looked content. I set her on my shoulder. "Very well, Melchizedek. Show me this procedure."

It was diagramed in fading ink in a large, musty book that looked Echidnaen. It involved an incredible amount of controlled power, as a person burned a symbol into another person's body with chaos power. But it allowed the branded person insane amounts of control. I could easily imagine the echidnas pioneering such a thing.

"We would modify it for you, though," said Melchizedek. "You cannot be branded that way because of the way your body heals itself. So I thought that we might use the pearl to engrave the symbol by leaving trace amounts of the pearl itself in the rune."

"It looks incredibly painful," I said. "But I must be able to use a Chaos Emerald properly. Perform the branding and we shall see if it works."

Painful does not begin to describe such an experience.

First we banished Aleda to the back yard, for neither of us felt that she should witness this event. Then Melchizedek copied the symbol onto my wrist in pencil. When finished, the rune would be four inches across and four inches long. Then we entered the basem*nt and went to one of the rear rooms, where stood several welding torches, metalworking tools, and an anvil. I placed my arm across the anvil and gripped the horn, bracing myself for the pain.

Melchizedek held the violet emerald in one hand and the pearl in the other. He focused on the emerald for several minutes without speaking. I waited, tense.

He spoke a word in Old Mobian, and the emerald shot a focused beam of light into the pearl. The pearl lit with white fire, and a beam shot through it and into my wrist. The nanite skin melted and burned away in black smoke, and my nerves and muscles screeched. I had to use every mental control tactic that I knew of to remain kneeling there by the anvil. Melchizedek slowly, carefully, traced the beam along the penciled lines, overlaying them in a burned trail with a thin white thread of liquid pearl in its heart.

The rune was intricate, and the operation took a blinding fifteen minutes of agony. When at last Melchizedek spoke the words to stop the Chaos Emerald from emitting power, my body was dripping with sweat, and every muscle fiber trembled. I sat back on my heels and slumped against the wall, cradling my injured arm against my chest. My entire arm burned, and my hand refused to work. The fingers had curled into strange atrophied shapes.

Melchizedek came to me with a wet towel and gently wrapped my arm in it. The fabric's touch was agony. Then he lifted me to my feet and helped me to stumble upstairs to my room. There I lay on the floor, unable to even close my eyes, while the sweat dried on my body and my brand throbbed like a drum in a nightmare.

But such is the composition of my body that I began healing at once. The wound was only superficial, and gradually the throbbing lessened. When Melchizedek checked on me half an hour later and offered healing, I was standing by the window, examining the pearly rune and its effect against my blue skin.

Melchizedek took my hand and examined the tattoo, turning my arm this way and that. "It looks like it's taken well," he said. "We'll give it three days to heal properly, though. If you conducted energy through it right now, it would be like being branded all over again." He paused and a clouded look entered his eyes. "Mecha ... you and Aleda had better remain indoors until then."

I nodded. "Yes." The brand left me vulnerable without the ability to use chaos.

Naturally, this led to a disaster that I could not prevent.

Chapter 16: The approach of Doom

Chapter Text

It was the third day. I had grown used to the odd numb feeling of the pearl tattoo, and it did not hurt at all. Being indoors and loafing grew tiring after the first day, with the others moving in and out and talking about their tasks at the orphanage. I wished that I still had chaos training, and spent all my time with Aleda.

By this time it was mid-April, and the weather was warm. By our third day of confinement, Aleda and I were bored and wishing to be out in the fresh air. We stood at the window, gazing longingly at the sunlit street and fresh green of the trees. "Tomorrow I will be fully repaired," I reassured her.

She sighed from her place on my shoulder. "I know. But I can't even play outside with Dusk."

I stroked her head. "Then let us find something to do."

Naturally, the first thing was to locate a satellite and secure a link to the Mobian internet uplink. Then I sifted through the latest news stories, and read the headlines aloud to Aleda.

"The human colonies are wrangling over trade rates with the Mobians again ... little surprise there, there are cheats on both sides. Interesting, a new tribe has been discovered in East Mobius. Seem to be insectivore and they farm a type of giant beetle ... there is a cat on trial in Rio del Fuego for burning down an apartment building ... her chaos power is fire, and it escaped her control. The humans want her imprisoned, and the Mobian Counsel is making it political ... typical ... here is an article that just appeared, about the comet that is nearing Mobius. It, ah ..." I trailed off.

What I read struck a chord of dread in my heart, and I did not wish to frighten Aleda.

"It what?" she asked.

"It is going to pass very close to Mobius," I said. But what I read was a terrifying article about how the comet was sending high-frequency signals to every ruler or political body on Mobius, identifying itself as the Black Comet, mothership of the Black Arms, who were demanding Mobius's unconditional surrender.

Seconds later, every news outlet on the server released the same story, with variations. The aliens had a leader called Black Doom, who was making the demands on behalf of his people. Every politician on the globe was attempting negotiations. I waited.

"Mecha," said Aleda, "what's the matter? You're just standing there, staring at the wall."

"I am reading," I said, hardly paying attention to her.

"Reading what?"

I turned my head and blinked at her. "I suppose you will find out soon enough. The comet is an alien space ship. The aliens are demanding that Mobius surrender to them."

Aleda stared at me. "Aliens? Like, bad aliens? Not like the humans?"

"Not like the humans," I said.

"Why do they want us to surrender?"

"So they may capture our planet without a fight," I said. "That will not happen."

We followed the breaking stories for the rest of the afternoon, as the sun sank behind the trees. Every telescope in the northern hemisphere was aimed at the comet, and there were some highly interesting photos. The comet was silver with a long tail, but the head, which should have been the brightest part, was instead a black hole. There were many zoomed-in images of this black area, trying in vain to identify the shape of the ship. Theories floated around about what they used for fuel, going by the spectral analysis of the tail. Speculation raged about how long the comet-ship had been in the Mobian solar system. It had been first sighted two hundred years ago, during the Chaos Wars, but no contact had been made until now. Perhaps the ship was only using the comet as cover?

The sun had set and twilight enveloped the outdoors. I heard the others return home, talking cheerfully in the front half of the house. "I wonder if they know of these developments," I remarked to Aleda.

She looked up at me. "It's the end of the third day. Could we go outside and look for the comet? Please?"

I added up the hours and decided that we were close enough to the deadline. "It is only for a few minutes," I said, flexing my right hand so the tattoo caught the light. "Then we shall inform the others."

I stepped out into the back yard and walked to the center, where I scanned the sky. "There!" said Aleda, pointing. I looked. Hanging low in the south, dim in the fading glow, was the comet. It looked small and insignificant compared to the pictures I had been viewing. And that comet threatened our planet. It was hard to believe, standing there in the peaceful spring evening with crickets chirping all around.

My radar showed a person walking up behind me. I turned. "Did you see-"

A hard object struck me between the eyes. I pitched backward and hit the ground, my visual sensors overloaded, blinded with pain. I struggled to my feet, but before I had reached my knees, my other scanners had isolated and identified my attacker. It was the hare from the canyon. As I had fallen, he had snatched Aleda from my shoulder. He held her in front of him and was backing toward the rear fence.

I regained my feet as my vision returned. The crumbled metal of my forehead punched back out and smoothed over. Through the network, Aleda said, "Mecha, what's happening? Is he kidnapping me?" She sounded more bemused than frightened.

I charged at the hare, but he put a hand around Aleda's neck. "Stop right there, robot."

I skidded to a halt on the grass.

The hare smiled. He was dressed in black, and wore iron-studded boots. No wonder he had nearly knocked me senseless. A kick from one of those was like a blow from a nightstick. "Harm her and I will detatch all of your limbs," I snarled.

The hare continued to smile. "Oh, I have no intention of harming her. I am a chao breeder. A little over a year ago, the most valuable egg in my collection was stolen moments before hatching. I have tracked you and this chao across North Mobius."

Panic hit me in the carbon processing system. I remembered Shadow bringing me Aleda's egg, and then collapsing of exhaustion because of teleporting too far. This was far more terrifying than seeing Aleda at the mercy of Robo Knux. This was encountering Aleda's breeder, whose claim upon her was legitimate.

I held up a hand. "Wait, please. She has been with me from birth. Removing her will send her into depression and shock."

"Yes, I know," said the hare. "It is a risk I'm willing to take. Her egg cost me hundreds of thousands of mobiads, and full-grown she is priceless."

He reached the back fence, where stood a small plastic box with a wire front. He opened this, placed Aleda inside, and snapped it shut. Immediately Aleda burst into tears.

I saw red.

"Chaos control!" I bellowed, channeling power straight from my field, for my Chaos Emerald was indoors. Power burst from the tattoo, and time slowed-then the energy seared into my barely-healed nerves, and my concentration shattered. Time resumed. The hare lifted the carrier and leaped ten feet straight up, clearing the fence with three feet to spare, and vanished. I vaulted the fence and followed.

Behind the yard was a long tree-studded slope. After a hundred yards there was a low stone wall, marking the edge of the canyon. The hare ran toward the canyon's edge in great leaps. I ran after him, pushing my synthetic muscles to their limits. Why was he running toward the canyon? I flashed the area with a scan, but detected no vehicles or other lifeforms. Why oh why had I left the house? It was too late to summon Melchizedek-this was what he had feared might happen, and like a fool I had stepped into the trap while still vulnerable. I could not lose Aleda, my dear Aleda, not again ...

It is a testament to my running ability that I caught up to the hare in a three hundred foot sprint. I reached him at the stone wall, and just as he jumped, I aimed a slash at his left hind leg. My claws do not miss. I had the pleasure of seeing the black leather shred like silk, and a red furrow open in the fur beneath. The hare shrieked. He landed on top of the wall and whirled on me, teeth bared. "You'll pay for that, droid!" He gave a shrill whistle through his teeth, and down from the sky (why had I not performed an aerial scan?) swooped two huge birds. His flung himself on the back of one, while the other dove at me.

My scans identified the bird as a roc, a two-headed bird of prey known for its extreme viciousness. But there was no time for thought, for it slashed at me with its talons, and its twin beaks drove at my eyes. Blinded and deafened by its beating wings, I did the only thing I could. I melted into a lumpy pool of biometal.

Decomposing my nanite structure is unpleasant and messy, but the ability to do so has served me well. Confused, the roc landed nearby and looked at the silver mess that was me, then spread its wings and flew off the hedge of the canyon.

I rebuilt myself, cell by cell, and gradually the silver puddle reformed into my body. I climbed up on the wall and stood there, tracking the rocs' flight. They headed west. I tracked them until they disappeared from scan range, as I swore revenge with every breath. Aleda was mine. No one could steal her away, and I did not care what claim they made. I hoped that I had lamed the hare for life.

Returning to the house, however, was a study in shame. Before I even entered the back yard again, I saw Rip with his elbows on top of the fence, his eyes aglow in the deepening twilight. "Mecha," he said as I approached, "there were eight dark ones empowering that bird. Are you okay?"

"They took Aleda," I snarled. "Does that sound 'okay' to you?"

I scrambled back over the fence, landed on the inside of the yard, and came face to face with Tear and Melchizedek. Tear was staring at the sky, and I figured that I knew what he was watching.

Melchizedek's eyes burned, and after one glance at his face I dropped my eyes to the ground. "Mecha," he said softly, "what did I tell you?"

"I left the house early," I said, embarrassment and remorse rising to mingle with my still-present rage and fear. "I did not follow your orders."

Melchizedek was silent, and I ventured to look up. His eyes still smouldered, but now there were tears in them. "Mecha, Mecha, Mecha. Rescuing Aleda will be more difficult than you can imagine." He turned and pointed to the southern sky, where the Black Comet was clearly visible. "Time is running out, and Aleda is not the only one who shall need your aid. Come inside, quickly. There is not much time."

I followed him inside in silence. His rage and grief were as great as my own. Seeing my own feelings on his face had an odd effect on me. It did not lessen my pain, but it made it easier to bear. I had caused this situation, but Melchizedek had not abandoned me.

He took me to his own room, which I had never before entered. It was sparsely furnished-a neatly-made bed, a bureau, a writing desk with a chair. He went to the bureau and opened a drawer. Inside, instead of clothing, there were many small objects lying on a bed of cotton wool. He removed a small pendant on a short chain and handed it to me. The pendant was shaped like a diamond and made of a dull black metal. On its face was a smooth polished half-sphere, black as night. Melchizedek breathed on it, and a yellow arrow appeared on the black face for a moment, then faded away. He handed it to me. "This will lead you where you must go in order to find the Master Designer. He alone can help you now."

"But what about Aleda?" I exclaimed. "She was taken by a chao breeder, and I cannot tolerate the thought!"

"I know," said Melchizedek. "I estimate that you have six weeks. Chao cannot breed all at once, and must have time to adapt to their surroundings. He will be careful with her and treat her like a queen."

"That is little comfort," I said.

He nodded. "You must leave at first light. I will arrange your transportation for part of your journey, but the rest will have to be by yourself, on foot."

He dug into the drawer again as I fastened the pendant around my neck. He withdrew a small mechanical object with little hooked claws. "Attach this to your ear," He said. "It is an audio speaker-transmitter. It will let you communicate with me at all times."

I nodded and clipped it into my right ear.

"It is very quiet," said Melchizedek. "I will never shout at you, so make sure that you are someplace where you can listen."

"Affirmative," I said.

Melchizedek closed the drawer, and I sighed. "You have treated me with kindness I do not deserve. I put Aleda into this situation. I deserve to be dropped into the canyon. My ... former ... master would not have been so forgiving as you."

He laid a hand on my shoulder. "Mecha, I know of your master and his actions. I could purchase you from him."

I looked at the hedgehog, one of the few people who had ever been kind to me, and did not fear me. I had followed his orders as if I belonged to him already. Owing him my allegiance was much more palatable than knowing that Dr. Robotnik still had a claim to me. "Yes," I said, "if you can persuade him to transfer ownership, I would be grateful. But I do not know how you would accomplish such a thing."

"Worry about your task and I will worry about mine," he said, smiling. "Better get some rest, Mecha. I'll wake you at dawn."

I returned to my room, and looked at the contents of my backpack scattered all over the room. On the floor lay Aleda's acorn. I picked it up, and unexpectedly my eyes blurred. She was gone, and without her I was desolate.

Sleeping with cold, empty arms was one of the most miserable experiences of my life. But sleep I did, for it numbed the pain and made the lonely night pass faster. Where was Aleda tonight? Was she as miserable as I was? I dreamed of her in an empty chao garden, crying for me and flapping her tiny wings in a useless attempt to escape.

I was awake long before dawn. When Melchizedek came for me, I had tidied the room and packed my backpack, and was absorbed in simple chaos exercises with the emerald. I was glad to abandon them.

We walked in silence through the still-sleeping house, and exited through a side door. Outdoors it was blue and chilly, the sky a colorless grey, neither light nor dark. The primary moon hung low in the west at half-phase.

"Melchizedek," I said, "do you think that the Black Arms will invade Mobius?"

He glanced at me, and the spines on his neck bristled. "Yes, I do."

"What then?" I said. "I am a trained assassin. Shall I hunt their leaders and kill them?"

"No, my son," said Melchizedek with an unexpected note of tenderness in his voice. "Your path lies with those whom you love-Aleda and Shadow."

My mind went blank. 'My son'? I did not know what was more astounding, that, or the admission that not only was I capable of love, but there were people to whom I had formed such an attachment. I followed him in silence, trying to comprehend the concept of love, and what he meant when he called me son.

A distraction awaited me on the front lawn. Seated on its haunches was a great winged reptile, its long snaky neck curved in our direction. As dragons go, he was small, hardly twenty feet from nose to tail, with a wingspan equal that. He wore a small cloth saddle at the base of his neck, between his wings. "There you are," he said, his tongue flicking out. "It iss cold. I wissh to be off."

"Charr?" I said in disbelief.

He blinked his green eyes and nodded. "Yess. I have a limited sshapesshift as one of my chaoss abilitiess. I can grow larger. It'ss usseful ssometimess."

"You may travel as far as the western human colonies," said Melchizedek. "After that, Charr must leave you and return here. No dragons are allowed within the colonies' borders according to their laws."

"Undersstandable," said Charr. He crouched and dropped a wing, inviting me to mount.

I did so, careful not to scratch him with my claws. "A companion and a mount," I remarked as I settled into the saddle. "You have remarkable resources, Melchizedek."

He grinned. "Be careful, Mecha. Your actions will save the lives of many of my children."

This statement so puzzled me that Charr was a thousand feet aloft and out over the canyon before I realized that we had left the ground.

He was a quick, efficient flyer, and was the sun rose, he caught a thermal over the canyon and rose it even higher, gliding in great sweeping circles. I watched as the sun lit the topmost peaks of the canyon with orange and gold, while the rest of the canyon remained in blue shadow. The air was forty degrees before windchill, but I did not care. Cold must be far below freezing for it to affect me, and I did not have Aleda to worry about. The thought depressed me. Without Aleda, my life was devoid of any good thing. She was the warmth in my heart, and without her, my heart was as cold and dark as the far side of the moon.

"A perfect day for flying," observed Charr. "Doess the cold bother you?"

"No," I replied. "It is not freezing, and I have tolerated much lower temperatures."

"Sso have I," said Charr, "although I do not like them. I lived on the high mountainss of Ssouth Mobiuss. Alass that I did not know about chaoss power before the slaverss came."

"How does one enslave a dragon?" I asked.

He gave an angry thrust of his wings that shot us twenty feet higher into the air. "Thiss iss an altered form, Mecha. My true body iss the ssmall one that you know. One ensslavess a dragonkin tribe by sslaying their leaderss and breaking the wingss of all the adultss, male and female. I losst my mate on the journey to the sslaveyardss. Sshe resissted." The bitterness tainted his voice, dropping it to a growl. "My whelpss were ssold before my eyess to variouss buyerss. One day I will hunt them down and take them all back. Much as you will do with your chao."

"I will kidnap her the way they did," I said, thinking of the hare and turning over his profile in my head.

Charr's head turned and he looked at me over his shoulder. "Perhapss. I am taking you to the breeding groundss of the Rocss. There you may learn who hired the two you ssaw."

This idea did not thrill me. Interviewing a flock of giant flesh-eating vultures was not how I had planned my pursuit of Aleda. But I held my tongue. Upon thinking about it, it was the logical way to begin the search, and I was grateful to Charr for the escort. "Tell me about the Rocs," I said. "Must I expect immediate attack?"

"Not necessarily," said Charr. "They have a colony on the wesstern sside of the canyon. If you enter the colony with food, they will be more likely to ansswer quesstionss."

"What sort of food?" I asked, already knowing the answer.

"Fresh meat."

We saw the gliding, circling rocs in the distance before we reached their colony. "Thiss is your mission," said Charr, banking and flying south, toward the canyon rim. "You hunt the meat to bribe them with. I'm going to bassk for a while."

This thrilled me even less than having to speak to the rocs.

I left the blue dragon standing on the canyon rim, wings open, facing the east with closed eyes. I scanned the area, and with a sinking heart detected some non-sentient deer. What happened next was bloody, and to me, humiliating, because I was forced to end the life of an innocent creature. I apologized to it as its life bled away, and carried its corpse back to Charr, hating myself with the blackest of hatred.

"That wass quick," he said in surprise as I approached with my burden. He took the carcass from my arms and stooped to allow me access to his back. "Thiss will do nicely," he remarked, diving off the edge of the canyon. I grimly gripped the saddlehorn and said nothing. When I possessed my jetpack, I performed maneuvers such as this without a thought. But riding a creature over whom I had no control was entirely different, and the sudden change in altitude made my processing system perform oddly.

We arrived at the roc nest a short time later. It was a cleft between two crags, and in the cleft were holes and ledges enough for a thousand rocs. However, I only counted two hundred twenty-eight, not including the ones in flight. Charr landed on the far edge of the cleft, let me dismount, and handed me the deer carcass. "Make ssure you sspeak to the Headss," he told me in a low voice. "He iss the one who knowss the mosst about what goess on with the flock."

"The Heads," I said, noting the plural. "Yes, of course."

Lugging the stiffening, repulsive corpse of my latest victim, I walked into the cleft.

The stone was strewn with black feathers and white droppings, and it stank of carrion and filth. The rocs leered at me from their perches along the walls, and called hoarsely back and forth. I called up to them, "I wish to speak to the Heads. I bring him a gift."

At once the largest and most unattractive of the vultures glided down and landed in front of me. His naked heads looked strangely small against his feathered body. He was twice my height. Gratefully I dropped the deer carcass at his feet. With one head he inspected it, and with the other he croaked, "What brings an inedible creature and a dragon into my domain?"

"I seek information, sir," I said.

His yellow eyes were hard and interested. "What information?"

"Last night at seven PM, I encountered two rocs," I said, and described Aleda's kidnapper. "I desire to know where the rocs conveyed him and who he was."

The Heads considered this for a moment, one set of eyes always on the deer. Then he said, "They were two of the younger birds, impetuous and ever hungry. The hare you speak of us called Anduvius. He was taken back to his home in Waterhall, far to the west. Is this the information you seek?"

"Yes," I said. "Thank you, sir."

"I accept your payment," he replied, and tore into the carcass with both beaks.

I hurriedly retreated to Charr, and we departed. "Waterhall," I said. I consulted my satellite map and located it, a small town a hundred miles from Metrocard, the nearest large city.

"Ahh, Waterhall," said Charr. "Mostly lakes and waterfalls. It will take me three days to fly there."

I checked the distance on my map. It was nearly one thousand miles. "How quickly could a roc reach Waterhall?"

"No sooner than us," said Charr, grinning in a savage way that pleased me. "If not slower. Anduvius has a chao to worry about. He may make several stops for her sake."

I clenched my claws into the fabric of the saddle. "Yes. For her sake, and his own."

Chapter 17: Lifeform data required

Chapter Text

We flew in silence for nearly an hour. I dwelled on various ways of dismembering the hare, my enemy, but it lost its thrill after a while. I had just killed a non-sentient creature, and doing so was like salt in the old wound of my sickening past. Although the idea of killing Anduvius was attractive, I discovered that I did not want to. I simply wanted Aleda back. Viewed objectively, Anduvius's action was not so extreme, particularly if he had purchased Aleda's egg himself. The thought was a gloomy one.

I logged onto the international wireless network and checked my bank accounts. The largest one I had allotted to Shadow for his uses as he roamed Mobius. I checked this one and saw thirty-seven small purchases over the last month, mostly of food. My heart ached a fraction more. Shadow, my friend. I hope that you are well, wherever you are.

I shuffled more funds into the account from one of my lesser accounts, then evaluated the rest. The market must have taken a downturn, because my 401k was empty. My savings looked good, however, but the money I had invested in other stocks had been halved. All told, I had slightly less than half a million mobiads. I doubted that it was enough to purchase Aleda, especially if her breeder considered her priceless. I surfed around the investigated the prices of chao and eggs. My findings depressed me. Chao sold for anything between five and ten thousand dollars, but metallic chao were rare and imported from South Mobius. Their prices ranged from ten thousand to thirty million.

I accessed my stock charts and did some day trading for a while, but my heart was not in it. When I had made ten dollars I logged off and stared at the horizon. We were flying over rocky mountains clad in trees, and in the distance they mounted into blue peaks wreathed in clouds. It was wild and uninhabited, and the wind was cold.

I thought again of Melchizedek's parting words. He had called me his son. Perhaps it was only a figure of speech. I thought of how he had offered to buy me, and pondered the difference between slavery and adoption. Slaves had no rights, while adopted children had all the rights of genetic children. I wished that I had had time to ask Melchizedek about it. I thought of the earpiece, but with so much wind, it would be impossible to hear anything. Then with a start I realized who I was riding. Charr had been bought from slavery, too.

"Charr," I said, "even though Melchizedek purchased you, do you consider yourself a slave, or an adopted child?"

He looked at me over his shoulder. "I am adopted into his family by law, but I sserve him by choice."

"So the slavery aspect is voluntary?"

"Ssort of." He flew for several wingbeats, then said, "Ssuppose that ssomeone whom you love assked you to do a tassk. To you it may be odiuss or unpleasant, but you do it anyway, becausse you love them."

"Yes." I thought of cleaning up after Aleda.

Charr said, "Ssuch sservice is like sslavery, but it iss not, becausse you do it willingly. That iss what being bought by Melchizedek iss. If you sserve him, it iss out of gratitude and love."

I remembered how Shadow insisted on calling me Master long after my wishes to enslave him had expired. Perhaps service out of love was not so foreign as I had thought. My eyes blurred in the wind from a sudden excess of moisture, and I blinked to clear them.

We flew in silence for several minutes. I saw an eagle flying level with us ten miles off. Below, the mountains were slowly rising toward us, and I saw that Charr was making for a pass between the peaks in the distance.

"It iss a privilege to be purchassed by Melchizedek," said Charr, his voice a bass rumble between my knees. "Hass he told you who he iss, or have you figured it out?"

"I do not understand," I replied. I glanced through my memories of Melchizedek and our interactions. "You mean about why you all refer to him as Salem?"

"Ssalem is one of his namess," said Charr. "I wonder why he did not tell you? Melchizedek iss divine. This world belongs to him."

Divinity. I tried to process this concept, but the idea had jagged edges that snagged on my logic. "That cannot be," I said. "A god by definition knows all, is all-powerful, and would not limit himself to a mortal body. Melchizedek eats and sleeps. I saw him express uncertainty. And of all the Mobian races, he is merely a hedgehog. No, he is not divine."

Charr looked back at me. "When hass he ever been uncertain?"

"During my training. He ..." I trailed off. There were times that he had pushed me too hard, but we had both known that I was capable of doing what he wanted. That was not uncertainty. "And he ..." I tried to think of an example of the limits of his power, but could not. His knowledge of chaos power surpassed anyone I had ever seen. I could not recall a time when he had not known something.

"But he is mortal!" I exclaimed. "With the weakness and limitations of a mortal body. Why would a god stoop to that?"

"To interact with mortalss," said Charr. "And I do not think that he iss altogether mortal ... he only appearss to be. I have sseen him do thingss ..."

We flew in silence for some time. I chased the idea of Melchizedek's divinity around in my mind, trying to disprove it and realizing that I could not. Instead I felt a growing dissatisfaction with Melchizedek. "If this world belongs to him, why does he not defend it?" I asked. "Why does he allow the Black Arms to threaten Mobius? Why does he permit the suffering and pain that run rampant?"

"You forget the Dark Oness," said Charr. "They laid claim to Mobiuss many agess ago, and their corruption hass infected the entire planet. But Melchizedek hass been here longer than they. What they destroy, he rebuildss. What they harm, he healss. One day, agess from now, he will conquer the Dark Oness and Mobiuss will be clean. But it iss a process. He is waiting for all of hiss loved oness to be born firsst."

This so baffled me that I made no reply.

We flew through the pass, and the wind rose to a gale that pitched us up and down. I clung to the saddle. Whatever else Melchizedek may be, I could not believe that he was divine. It was too outrageous. Until he backed up this claim himself, I could not think of him as anything other than a gifted hedgehog.

After we cleared the pass, we found the mountains falling away below us, and the setting sun glared off the peaks in bright gold.

Charr dropped toward a small green valley with a blue lake in it-brilliant and calm it looked, after so long in the air. But it was not until we had landed on the grass that I realized the real reason for our landing. Charr did not fold his wings. He let them droop on either side of his body, and they trembled like leaves in a wind. He hissed a chaos command, and shrank back into his humanoid dragon form. The saddle, now as large as he was, fell aside, and he stepped out of the straps. He turned to one of the side-pouches, pulled out a plastic-wrapped parcel, and unwrapped it. "Want a steak?" he asked. His wings, although smaller, still shook.

"No thank you," I said.

He nodded and breathed pale flames on the meat. It blackened at once. He ate the entire steak in three bites, and pulled out another.

Watching a famished dragonkin eat is not high on my list of pleasant sights, so I walked down to the lake. The water was deep blue and ruffled by the wind. Absently I wondered what Aleda would think of this place, and automatically checked the depth of the water ... then I came to my senses. Aleda was not here. She would not play on the shore of this lake, nor would she perhaps ever see it at all. My eyes blurred most annoyingly, and I rubbed them. The wind must have irritated them.

I returned to Charr and found him curled up beside the enormous saddle, asleep. I sat down nearby and gazed at the lake, relishing being on the ground. My thoughts returned to Melchizedek. If he was divine, was he the Master Designer? I lifted the medallion around my neck and looked at the black stone in it. If he was, this arrow should point in the direction that we had come. I breathed on it. The gold arrow appeared, but it pointed west, not east. So the Master Designer was not Melchizedek. My path to him lay ahead, not behind. I sighed. Perhaps Melchizedek was a sort of angel.

The next two days of flight passed uneventfully. Charr and I had many debates about Melchizedek, all of which ended without resolution. I passed the rest of the time scanning the news networks for information on the Black Arms.

The leader of the aliens had identified himself simply as Black Doom. Those pushing for peace talks found this ominous. Black Doom had a counterpart; a starfish-like eye that swam in our atmosphere like a squid through water. This counterpart appeared through a portaling device that used chaos energy and communicated with the leaders of the various nations. So far some of the countries in East and Central Mobius had begun discussing terms of capitulation, but on West Mobius, the human colonies had led the others in resisting all talk of surrender. In fact, they were making threats back to the aliens. Apparently this did not sit well with Black Doom, and his (its? scientists were uncertain of gender) tone had become dangerous.

The Mobian cities and countries, which until now had treated the human colonies as a pariah, now backed them all the way, and offered the use of their own plasma-based technology. The humans had brought to Mobius their own dirty but effective nuclear weapons, which had not been used on Mobius in four centuries. All of these were quietly allied against the Black Arms, should they decide to invade.

Slowly a new fear formed in the back of my mind. Shadow was in one of the human colonies, possibly Sapphire City. What would happen to him if the humans and aliens attacked each other? I nearly dispatched a transmission to him, but thought better of it. Mekion would recieve it, not Shadow, and he would never pass it on.

Thus I was not in the calmest frame of mind when Charr and I landed in Waterhall.

As Charr had said, it was built in the hills, and I counted sixteen waterfalls. Three rivers from the mountain behind the town poured down into the valley, but first they detoured through picturesque rock formations with houses clustered around them. As Charr circled over the villages, he stretched out a claw and pointed to one series of roofs in particular. "Chao gardens." I studied it with every scanner I possessed.

It was much larger than the Sapphire City garden. There were a dozen walled playgrounds and enough interlocking buildings to give them ten thousand square feet indoors. It was crammed with lifeforms. I glared down at the roofs. Aleda was there somewhere.

Charr landed in a wide grassy park area near one of the waterfalls, which existed solely for dragons and other large winged Mobians. There were perches and a deep stone basin where large creatures could drink. Charr crouched to let me slide off his back, and said, "I'll wait here. You might want to make a hassty esscape."

I tried to feel amused by this remark, but failed. It was with a growing urge to vomit that I walked down the street toward the chao gardens. I would not get Aleda back. I could steal her, but I could not see how I could accomplish such a thing without bloodshed.

I disguised myself as a nondescript brown fox by rearranging the nanites that composed my face, ears, and color, and composed a tail out of the material that used to form my spines. By raising the nanites in hair-like structures, I managed to cover myself in short, velvety 'fur'. Hopefully if I met Anduvius, he would not recognize me as Metal Sonic.

The chao garden had a large parking lot and an immaculate green lawn, with bushes trimmed to look like chao. I found it revolting. There were eight Mobian hover vehicles parked along the front. I traced them with a scan. They were expensive models, with up to date registration and programming. These chao breeders did well for themselves. I walked to the entrance and opened the door.

Inside was a lobby with a marble floor, a skylight in the ceiling, and three small trees growing in a stone planter. Large posters of chao in cute poses lined the walls. My disgust growing, I walked to the front counter. There was no one there. I rang the service bell and waited, wondering if they let chao host guests the way the gardens in Sapphire City did.

Apparently not. Anduvius himself appeared, hobbling on a crutch with his leg bandaged. I did not feel any remorse.

"Yes?" he said, sitting down behind the counter with evident relief.

"I am in the market for a chao," I said. "You were recommended to me as an excellent breeder from whom I could acquire a healthy specimen." Flattery, I have learned, makes anyone more inclined to help you.

The hare pulled out a form and a pen. "Who recommended us?"

"The Chao Company in Sapphire City," I said, hoping there was no competition between the two. Apparently not, for Anduvius wrote this down without batting an eye.

He slid the form and pen toward me. "I need a record of your visit, in case you would like to reserve a certain variety. Sign here, please."

I glanced at the form. It was a simple legal agreement saying that they needed me on file to do business. I signed my name as my usual alias, Melthision. Anduvius retrieved the form and spoke into an intercom. "Aly, please come to the front desk." He gave me an apologetic smile. "I would escort you myself, but I had an accident a few days ago ..."

I nodded. "Understandable." I still felt no remorse.

A moment later another hare emerged from a side hall, her ears held back with a band of artificial flowers. I wondered if it hurt. She glanced at me, smiled blandly and said, "Come with me, please. I will show you the breeds currently available."

The ensuing tour was one of the more painful experiences of my life, akin to having a red-hot knife stabbed into my belly and slowly twisted.

The gardens were clean and well-tended, and the play equipment was modern and brightly-colored ... but it was the chao that hurt my heart. The ones Aly showed me were all very young, pre-otiae and therefore could not speak. All of them had a dejected look, and ambled about like small prisoners devoid of hope. They regarded us warily, and did not come forward to greet us.

I put on a show of being extremely picky, and demanded to see the breeding stock. Aly complied, and took me to several other gardens. Here were the adult chao, females and males kept in seperate gardens, all sorted by color and elemental characteristics. These were worse than the young ones. Everywhere we went, the chao just sat on the grass as if their spirits were broken, and regarded us with sad eyes.

"I have heard rumors that you breed metallic chao," I said. "May I see them?"

Again, Aly complied, and treated me to a speech about how rare metallic chao were, and how they were only located on South Mobius, where a primitive tribe of jaguars had bred them for centuries.

Here at last was Aleda. This garden was smaller than the others, and there were only two other females besides her. She recognized me at once, for her eyes brightened, but she pretended that she did not. "What beautiful creatures," I said. "May I examine them closer?"

"Certainly," said the hare, kneeling and snapping her fingers. Aleda moseyed toward us, followed by the other two, a gold and a shining red.

"May I talk with them in turn?" I asked. "I am curious about their level of intelligence."

Aly rolled her eyes. "Go ahead."

Without looking at Aleda, I said over the network, "I will address you last. Are you all right?"

I picked up the gold chao and looked at her.

"I'm fine," said Aleda through the network. "I wasn't in the cage very long. The rabbit flew to this place where a plane was, and we flew here on that. The food's okay, but it's so boring!"

"What's your name?" I asked the golden chao aloud.

"Epsy," she replied.

"Where were you born?" I asked her.

"I was hatched here," she said. "My egg came from South Mobius somewhere." Her eyes were dull. She had no interest in me or the conversation.

"Aleda," I said through the network and blessing its existence, "I could steal you back fairly easily. The security here is no match for my systems. I could bypass it long enough to remove you."

Aleda pretended that she wasn't talking to me by pacing up and down. "But won't they hunt me down again and bring me back?"

"Possibly." My heart sank at the thought.

I rubbed the golden chao's head and set her on the grass. I turned to the red chao and picked her up. "And what's your name?"

"Thistle." Like Epsy, she was dead behind the eyes.

"Mecha, could you buy me?" Aleda asked.

"I can try," I said, "but your price is in the millions, and I do not possess that much. Perhaps I could negotiate a payment plan."

To Thistle I said, "How old are you?"

"Three years," she said tonelessly. "I've bred twice."

I had not wanted to know that. "You look healthy enough," I said. "What do you prefer to eat?"

"Coconuts, mostly."

I rubbed her head in an attempt to bring life to those dead eyes, but was unsuccessful. I set her down and at last picked up Aleda. "What is your name?"

"Aleda," she said, gazing at me with my own red eyes. Through the network she said, "How long would it take you to buy me?"

"I honestly do not know," I said. "If the Black Arms invade, I may have a chance to steal you without being caught. Otherwise I will try to reserve you as a future purchase, and perhaps they will not breed you if I request it." Aloud, for the benefit of Aly, I said, "Are you from South Mobius, too?"

"I guess so," she replied. "I only just got here." Her eyes suddenly filled with tears.

"Shh," I said through the network. "Whatever happens, you will be safe here, and I will return for you."

Her chin trembled. Through the network she wailed, "But I'm not safe here! They want to breed me and sell my egg! And the only chao I'd ever want to breed with is Nox, anyway!" She burst into tears and threw herself against my chest.

My own throat constricted painfully. I had not known about her attraction to Nox, but it did not surprise me unduly. The two had been raised together. I stroked her and turned to Aly, who was watching in consternation. "This chao seems emotionally unstable," I remarked, speaking with difficulty of my own chao like this. "Perhaps she needs rest."

"Hush, Aleda," I said through the network. "If you reveal my identity, I will never be able to purchase you."

Her sobs quieted. She sat up in my arms and wiped her eyes.

"I must work at the stock market for a while," I told her. "And Melchizedek told me how to find the Master Designer. Perhaps he will help me rescue you."

Hope brightened in her eyes. "How will you find him?"

"With this," I said, indicating my necklace. "It displays an arrow. I shall follow it and see where it leads. Are you allowed access to computers?"

"Sometimes," she said. "Could I email you?"

"Please," I said. "If they intend to breed you, contact me."

"Okay."

Aly had watched Aleda calm down, and had no idea that we were communicating. "You are wonderful with chao, sir!"

"It is a gift," I said. I patted Aleda's head and set her down.

As Aly led me to the door, I said to Aleda through the network, "Take heart and be strong, Aleda. I promise that I will return."

"And if they try to breed me," snarled Aleda, sounding like herself again, "I'll kick the male's butt right over the wall."

A smile leaped to my face before I could thwart it.

Aleda was not for sale, I discovered. They did not sell their breeding stock. I asked about her price and Anduvius put her at five million. I asked if I could reserve her for future purchase. At first he said no, but I waved my debit card at him, mentioning a half a million down payment. His tone softened after that. Before long he was showing me through a sheaf of papers, and telling me that if I ever bred her, to consider them as buyers for the eggs.

I emptied my bank account with the down payment, but at least it insured that Aleda would not be bred in my absence. As I filled out the papers, I carefully probed for Aleda's network signal. Being biologically powered, the signal was weak and limited to twenty feet. I could not detect her to tell her what I had done. She would have to trust me.

I walked out of the breeders in a significantly better mood than when I had entered. I walked out to the road and climbed back up the hill toward where Charr awaited me. I must now spend much time observing the stock market and making what money I could. I pondered the effects of an impending alien invasion on the markets, and opened a link to the internet.

Connection denied.

Strange. I queried the server again. Connection denied. I scanned for a signal and found that it was being scrambled. Who would block local wireless access? I scanned for electronic signals in the area. It saved my life.

The scrambling signal came from a point up the road. I could see nothing there, so I cycled to infrared. Standing on the road thirty feet away, clutching some sort of firearm, was an unknown species of biped. On infrared its body shone hot red and yellow, indicating high internal temperature. It wore some sort of camouflage or cloaking device that hid it from the naked eye.

I halted, then cursed myself. It thought itself hidden, and I must not let on that I saw it. I turned right instead, where the hill rose above me, and climbed up into the trees. I wanted cover between me and its weapon. I did not like to think of what would have happened if I had continued walking up the road.

I scanned it and rescanned it, trying to identify it. It was not an ape, for it wore scales instead of fur, and it lacked a tail. There was no visible mouth. The eyes were overly large, and from the light refraction I guessed that they were compound. Was this one of the Black Arms, perhaps out scouting? It certainly matched no other species in my databanks ...

I stood behind a tree, switched to infrared again, and peered around it at the alien. To my shock, a second alien stood scarcely ten feet from me, motionless, watching. The other on the road had not moved, but it was watching me.

They were stalking me.

Questions of why they bothered could be left for later. Foremost in my mind was how easily these creatures died. Did they bleed? What were their weak points? From the shape and size of their heads, I surmised that that was where their brains resided. Those large eyes would not withstand a slash from razor-sharp claws.

As I examined the aliens, the one nearest me crept forward. Its legs had a knee and ankle joint, but it walked on its toes like a cat. It wore boots that fit its three toes like a glove, with treads under each toe. I could still only see it on infrared. This one carried no weapon, but it wore gloves through which thick, metallic-looking claws protruded. Claws I could manage.

It crouched for a second. I tensed. As it sprang, I leaped lightly to one side and kicked it in the torso. It flinched and whirled with a growl. I wondered how it could vocalize with no mouth. It sprang at me again, claws extended to grab me. Again I ducked, and this time aimed a swipe at its left eye. My claws raked across its face, but it twisted away before I could touch its eye. It never blinked. No eyelids? In retaliation, its claws struck me in the chest and raked sideways, across my shoulder. The biometal gave, turned silver, and healed at once.

The alien was fast, but not as fast as I. What puzzled me was the blood on its face. It was thick and over four hundred degrees, like molten metal. My slight fear vanished. This creature was too slow to harm me, and its physiognomy was fascinating.

I managed to tear a great hot wound down its right arm when I realized my one oversight. I had forgotten about the other alien.

This oversight was indicated when a bolt of burning plasma splashed the ground near my left ankle. I danced away from the flaming grass and saw the other alien standing with its weapon trained on me. I dove behind its companion as it fired.

The alien I had been fighting took the hit in the chest. It made a grating, moaning sound, stumbled backward and fell on top of me.

Odd how it harmed me worse by falling on me. Its burning blood made contact with one of my legs, and I felt the heat radiating from its scales. I struggled and threw the body off me, and found the other alien standing over me. I leaped to my feet, using my momentum to drive an uppercut into the area where I guessed its chin was. Something cracked, and the alien crumpled.

I could not remove the molten blood from my leg. I wiped it on the grass, scrubbed it with handfuls of earth, and finally tore at it with my claws. As it cooled, it hardened into a black line like asphalt all the way down my shin, and my nerves cringed as it cooled and contracted. I could not get it off.

The second alien had not moved. Giving up on the blood on my leg, I moved to examine it. The way its head wobbled, I guessed that I had broken its neck. So it had a similar skeletal and nervous structure to Mobian life. Fascinating. I called the Waterhall authorities, and slipped back to Charr as they arrived.

He was standing and peering down the road as I approached. "What just happened?"

"It appears that I have incapacitated a Black Arms scouting team," I replied. "It is prudent to leave the area before the local police arrive. I would not mind their questions, if I were not a former assassin."

"I see." Charr crouched and let me climb into his saddle. Then he bounded into the air, and Waterhall fell below us.

"How went the confrontation over Aleda?" he asked.

I considered. "Quite well, all things considered. I put down a holding payment to insure that she is not bred in my absence. I now owe them four and a half million mobiads."

Charr whistled through his teeth. "So where are we going now?"

I breathed on my pendant. The arrow appeared, pointing southwest. "Toward the human colonies. I want to locate the Master Designer."

Chapter 18: A change in fortunes

Chapter Text

The following weeks of travel were uneventful compared to what transpired at Waterhall. Between Charr's ability to adjust his size, and my semi-shapeshift, we stayed in little Mobian towns almost every night. On warm nights we camped out in the hills.

Charr was pleasant company, and his thoughtful analysis of the places we visited and the philosophy he held challenged my own intellect. I had not had such conversation since Shadow departed.

At night, instead of sleeping, I combed the stock markets, buying, selling, tracking numbers and percentages, cultivating my individual trades like tender plants. When they reached the limits I placed on them, high or low, I sold them and reinvested the profits. At dawn I closed all but my long-term futures, and attended to the matter of travel. During the day I observed the trends of the markets, and the next night I jumped in again.

The arrow in my pendant led us toward the coast, but before we came within the boundaries of the colonies, the arrow changed directions. Now it pointed due south. We altered directions accordingly, Charr with relief. He was interested in my quest, and curious to see what I might find at the end.

Sometimes I inserted my earpiece and spoke to Melchizedek. The earpiece was indeed very quiet, and I usually used it in the evenings. I kept him updated on our travels, and he gave me news about what was going on in Viperdale. It gave me a vague feeling of displacement, as if I wished to be elsewhere. Upon analyzing this feeling, I identified it as homesickness. But how was it possible to feel homesick for a place where I had merely visited as a guest? I did not miss my underground base that way. Ashamed of this feeling, I kept it to myself.

Near the middle of May, a series of thunderstorms kept us grounded in a tiny village called Azalea Grove. Charr and I sheltered in a garage filled with discarded appliances, and amused ourselves by trying to repair them for the owner. All that he asked was that we put the machines back together afterwards. It was there, purely by accident, that I discovered a new chaos power latent in myself.

We were working on a burned-out holoprojector. Charr had the imaging transfer tube in his lap, and was carefully welding wires into place with his breath and the tip of a claw. My task was to repair the machine's system. I could not interface with the circuit boards wirelessly, so I stuck one of the machine's wires to my forehead with a dab of melted plastic. I instructed my biometal to build a temporary connection there. The projector's programming appeared on the screen in my mind, and I ran diagnostics on it.

The program so far was operational. Bored, I flexed my hand and watched the pearl chaos rune ripple over my muscles. I kept that hand away from the machinery, for I was afraid that the tiniest spark of chaos power would destroy it all. Technically the rune had no power without an emerald, but I did not wish to test it.

Charr coughed, then swore. I turned my head and saw that his breath had melted through the side of the tube. I snickered, then cursed, myself. That brief movement had pulled the wire from my head and broken the connection. Without thinking, I picked up the wire in my right hand.

Electricity jolted through me, but centered on my chaos rune. For an instant I saw it glow. Then I saw lights. Blinding lights that flashed past in the darkness. My body was gone and all that was left was quivering electricity. I raced down a thoroughfare at the speed of light, turned corners, and channeled through a circuit.

I struggled to understand what I was seeing. I could not have transformed into a light particle. My chaos rune was not that powerful. And I was seeing the inside of something electronic ...

Once I realized that, I found my body again, kneeling on the floor, wire still in hand. But part of my consciousness was attached to an electron that was weaving and dancing its way between atoms inside the circuit boards of the holoprojector.

I pushed at the electron, and sent it speeding around the circuit board. Fascinating. A very specialized chaos power. It must use the barest fraction of energy to keep from electrocuting the equipment. I watched the electrical dance and wondered what I could do with this. I moved the electron to the memory chips and sent it careening through them. Information sparkled within them, some lights on, some off, and others winking on and off in patterns. Understanding binary is one thing I have never lost, and I flashed through the code, altering it as I went.

The holoprojector's diagnostic crashed instantly, but I did not care. What is an error or two when you can rewrite the hard coding from the side of the energy that powers it?

In five minutes I had the code in pristine condition, having fixed all of the errors.

I released my electron and the chaos-vision faded. I quickly wrote several programs, and did it again. Within minutes I had ten chaos-electrons under my control, and I worked even faster. I wanted to laugh. The power to program with electricity! I had never heard of such a thing. I wondered if it might work against Mekion. If I ever received the opportunity to try.

Charr and I continued our journey after the storm ended. First I presented the garage owner with a fully functional holoprojector. Charr was moderately impressed. He said that the power was a good fit for me, and he had expected something like it. It was Melchizedek who was excited.

I contacted him that night with my earpiece and informed him of my discovery.

"Congratulations!" he exclaimed. "You've begun to unlock your power, Mecha! This is but the first step on the journey. How did you learn it?"

I explained about stumbling across it by accident, and without even touching a Chaos Emerald.

"You may find that you can do many things without a Chaos Emerald, now that you have a rune," said Melchizedek. "The pearl in your skin conducts power out of the global field itself. However, using a Chaos Emerald will grant you access to much bigger things."

It was gratifying to earn the praise of my teacher. I felt a warmth in my middle. I wished that I could tell Aleda about this, and I missed her horribly. But I did not let myself brood. There was too much to do.

The arrow on my pendant continued pointing south, and Charr and I kept traveling. We had entered a region that I knew well; the human colonies, and the Mobian cities that had sprung up to do trade with them. We stayed away from them, but their lights illuminated the sky at night.

As dusk fell on June first, I checked the news network for the first time in several weeks. I immediately wished that I had kept better informed.

The Black Arms had ceased all negotiations a week ago. For seven days the Black Comet had hung in orbit, deaf to all transmissions and answering none. Defense radar kept picking up electrical discharges here and there along the coast, the GUN had captured several alien probe teams. None of the articles said the word 'invasion', but every sentence was pregnant with it.

I informed Charr of the news. He looked nervously at the ground-a wide grassy hillside where he had been thinking to land. "I don't want ssilly alienss sshooting at uss," he said through his teeth, more sibilant than usual. "Let'ss ssleep in the woodss insstead." We flew on, and Charr dropped within twenty feet of the ground, seeming to hug it for shelter, his wing tips brushing the grass.

I felt a creeping, paranoid fear that I usually only associated with Robo Knux. Hostile alien invaders who might be anywhere. I activated all of my scanners and set them to their widest sweep. The hillside was empty, save for three rabbits and many mice. A small wood clad the hill in the distance, and Charr made for it, still hugging the ground. "How'ss the treess look?" he asked.

"They offer definite cover," I said. "I shall scan them once we are within range."

I was so accustomed to relying on my sensors that I had all but forgotten to use my built-in senses. Fortunately, Charr used his continually. His head jerked up. "I ssmell ssomething sstrange," He sniffed, then hissed through his teeth. "It sstinkss like brimsstone."

I remembered the molten blood of the Black Arms. "That could be an alien patrol. I have nothing on my scans."

Charr banked left and flew downhill, cursing in one long hiss. "They're upwind and it'ss sstrong. They're closse."

I focused my infrared scans on the hilltop and picked up half a dozen white-hot signatures, as well as several others that were airborne. I looked over my shoulder.

Four bat-like shapes were silhouetted against the dimming sky. I squinted and zoomed in my vision. They still looked like bats, but of enormous size, and carrying aliens on their backs.

"There are four aliens on winged creatures," I told Charr. "Fly faster."

He curved his neck around to look over his shoulder, and blue flames flickered out through his teeth. "We'll ssee what kind of flierss they are," he growled. "Hold on tight."

I crouched low over his neck to decrease my wind resistance. Charr's wings pumped, driving us through the air at nearly fifty miles an hour. The aliens fell behind.

Something pinged in my brain. An email. What in the world? I never received email, due to heavy spam filters and semi-intelligent algorithms that caught and held messages, checked their interest levels, and deleted them accordingly. Only the most interesting messages ever reached me, the last being a letter from Tails asking for assistance on a circuit design. I had never bothered to reply. Now, curious despite the circ*mstances, I opened this new email.

"Mecha. Need to talk. I was contacted by an alien called Black Doom. Involves Chaos Emeralds. Mekion being a pain. Send email, Mekion blocking transmissions. Shadow."

My though processes froze. Shadow had been contacted by Black Doom? My scanners hung. The programs crashed. I did not care. Shadow, weakened as he was by Mekion's insanity, contacted by a devious alien hierarch. About Chaos Emeralds. My mind could not function. I clung automatically to the saddle and squinted against the roaring wind. The wind was inside of me, whirling and empty. With an effort I realized that I was panicking. A purely emotional reaction.

With a strong effort I mastered my fear and forced myself to think logically. Shadow and Mekion had ceased almost all communication when I last saw them, and thus Shadow had probably not read the online reports. He needed my help and advice. I thought of my power to control electrons. This was my opportunity to use it on Mekion. Perhaps I could finally repair him. I wondered why Chaos Emeralds were involved and-

My thoughts were interrupted as Charr shuddered silently. His wings closed. "Charr!" I yelled as we dropped from the sky. My scans indicated a wound in his side, under his foreleg. Someone had shot him. To my horror, his control over the power that increased his size stopped. I was suddenly astride a dragon no bigger than I was.

I flung myself clear of him as we fell, knowing that if I landed on him, I would shatter his spine. Fortunately we had been flying low, so the fall was only thirty-two feet. I landed in a half-roll and struck my head hard enough to make my vision wobble. Charr, on the other hand, landed on a large bush with a painful crunch. He lay still in its ruins, head lolling to one side. I dashed to him. He still lived, but was losing blood fast from his wound. His body was tangled in the saddle and our baggage, and worst of all, the flying aliens had seen us fall. They swooped toward us with shrill cries of glee.

I laid a hand on Charr's shoulder and the other on my bag, which contained my Chaos Emerald. I closed my eyes and pictured Melchizedek as clearly as my internal visualization emitters could transmit, and drew on the chaos power. I felt my chaos rune ripple and grow warm. "Chaos relocate," I said.

The power pulsed. Yet when I opened my eyes, Charr and I were still on the hillside, and the winged aliens were circling overhead, marking our location for their comrades. What had I done wrong? Must I be physically touching the emerald at all times? I started to tear open my bag, but a hand descended on my arm. I whipped around and narrowly missed cutting off Melchizedek's nose. Then I stared at him. "What-?"

"You called and I came," he said with a touch of a smile. He bent over Charr.

"What about the aliens?" I asked.

Without looking up, he said, "Let them come."

I remembered the day in the canyon when I had felt Melchizedek's power, and my fear vanished. This hedgehog could probably speak a word and vaporize them all where they stood. So I waited.

Melchizedek's attention was focused on Charr. He placed a hand over Charr's wound, and in the near-darkness, I saw the green flickers of healing power. Charr lifted his head and looked at us. "Ssalem," he whispered. "Thank you. They had a ssniper ..."

"Shh," said Melchizedek. "I am with you now, child. Lie still."

Charr obeyed with a sigh. I was reminded of myself and Aleda, and of how I soothed her when she was frightened.

The aliens on foot were running toward us, their red eyes glowing in the twilight. My fingers curled into claws. "I shall defend us," I told Melchizedek.

He looked up. "No need. Stand still, Mecha."

I obeyed, expecting some impressive new chaos power.

A military aircraft appeared over the hilltop and swept down on the aliens. I scanned it. One of GUN's super-quiet helicopters. It tagged all the aliens with a barely-visible blue laser beam, then fired a plasma-infused projectile. It split into shards, and each shard homed in on a tagged alien. Each alien took a shard in the back and fell instantly. Then the helicopter went after the flying aliens, but they scattered in four directions. The helicopter flew off in pursuit of one, leaving us in sudden silence.

Charr sat up. "What jusst happened?"

"A miracle," I said, letting my claws relax. I looked at Melchizedek. "Did you call GUN?"

"No," he said, but his eyes twinkled. "I knew they were coming."

"Why did my teleport not work correctly?" I asked. "I meant to return us to Viperdale."

"You focused on a person," said Melchizedek. "Not a place. Had you pictured a place, you would have gone there. But you focused on me, and so I came to you."

I filed this for future reference.

"Now," he went on, "we have come to the breaking point. Shadow needs you, Mecha. You must complete your journey alone, and only by completing it can you aid Shadow. And if you cannot aid Shadow, then the Black Arms will have no one to oppose them and Mobius will fall to them."

"Shadow emailed me only moments ago," I said. "Shall I go to him?"

"Yes," said Melchizedek. "There is little time left before the battle. The Dark Ones have allied themselves with the Black Arms. This war has multiple layers."

I pulled my backpack out of the pile around Charr and slung it over my shoulder. I located the Chaos Emerald and extracted it, but hesitated, looking at Melchizedek. There was so much that I wished to tell him, fears I wished to articulate. Seeming to sense this, he laid a hand on my forehead and said softly, "Be at peace, Mecha. We will meet again soon. Now go to Shadow."

I felt my anxiety ebb and calm. Did he know a heal for the emotions? Amazing. "Yes sir," I said. I gripped the emerald and teleported to Sapphire City.

Locating Shadow was harder than I had anticipated. His hardware was turned off, and without its signature I could not track him. I spent the majority of the night roaming the city, disguised as a fox, growing increasingly frustrated. My scans kept picking up an echo of my own signal, possibly bounced back from the concrete.

Fortunately his signal activated shortly after midnight for a few minutes. I legged his location on my map-a chao garden-but I was three miles away. Three miles on foot through Sapphire City was an annoyingly long trek. I resorted to short teleports to overcome obstacles, tune-tuning my technique, and found Shadow at dawn.

He was curled up asleep on the grass in the back of one of the main chao gardens. I scaled the wall with ease, dropped into the garden, and scanned it. Some chao were already toddling out onto the grass, and they regarded me with surprise. My throat constricted. Aleda was in a garden like this, when she should be here, accompanying me on my search ...

I pushed these troublesome emotions aside. I had to focus on Shadow. I knelt and placed a finger over my lips. The chao grinned at me. At the same time, a large black chao bounded into sight and whispered to the garde chao. They all nodded, then the black chao ran to me. "Mecha!" he exclaimed. "Boy, it's good to see you!"

"Hello Nox," I said. "Is Shadow awake?"

"No, he's conked," said Nox. "Mekion sure has been weird lately, especially since we saw Black Doom ..."

This struck me as ominous.

I crossed the garden and bent over Shadow, shaking him. Hie looked healthy enough. His fur was thick, if a little matted, and his face color was good. But he had blisters across his muzzle ... strange. His living eye opened, and Mekion's red pupil flicked on. "Mecha?" he said, sitting up and staring at me.

"Hush," I said. "I do not know why you chose a chao garden for cover, but there are people about, and we are here illegally."

"Oh," he said, sitting up and yawning. "I'll warp us out."

Nox had already retrieved Shadow's gold Chaos Emerald. He placed it in Shadow's hand. "The other chao have already seen us. I know some of them. I made them swear not to tell on us."

This made me smile. Nox always looked out for Shadow, even when in the safety of a chao garden ...

Shadow climbed to his feet and picked up Nox. I watched his movements, at the way his robot and living limbs moved in harmony. No delay. Mekion was not hindering him at the moment. I wondered why.

Shadow laid his hand on my shoulder and teleported us to a hill outside the city. His claws sank into me, clenching tighter and tighter. I flinched, and Shadow looked at his hand in shock. Mekion had tightened his grip, not Shadow.

We pried his fingers out of my biometal, which healed immediately. "Mecha, I'm so sorry-" Shadow began.

"No harm done," I growled as the pain dulled to an ache. I wished I knew chaos healing.

Shadow looked me up and down, frowning. "Mecha, where's Aleda?"

I looked at Shadow. There was no time to plumb the depths of that particular misery. I touched my chaos rune for reassurance. "Safe," I said. "I was passing through the area when I received your message. You said that you were contacted by Black Doom?" I tried to sound casual.

Shadow replied in the affirmative, and asked if I knew him. I told him what I knew of Black Doom and his threats to Mobius. Then Shadow dropped the bombshell.

"He wants me to bring him the Chaos Emeralds. He said that we have an agreement."

Fear jolted through my central nervous system. "An agreement. Did Mekion make it?"

Shadow touched the blisters on his face, frowning. "I don't know. I'll bet he did, though."

Blast Mekion. I cursed the day I engineered him from Shadow's neural pathways. "I had better have a look at his software. I cannot imagine what must be going on inside of his programming."

Shadow lay down on the grass and looked at me anxiously. "Just stay out of reach."

I nodded. His robot claws twitched, ready to hurt me again. I clenched my teeth, locked onto his signal, and logged onto Mekion's interface.

Mekion spawned the usual menu, a virtual entry room with three doors that led to different parts of his system. But the doors had been replaced by sheets of metal. I entered the old access commands, but they did nothing. Mekion had retooled his security software. Fortunately I left myself a few back doors in case something like this ever happened. I opened his graphics shell and slipped into his matrix. It took a fraction of a second to access the administration center.

The virtual space changed to a neat room made of code blocks. But standing in this room were three eyeless canine monsters with huge fangs. They attacked my user shell and flooded my interface with bloody errors. The program hung. I closed it and flushed the memory. I had never seen a defense program like that. Did Mekion invent it, or did Doom upload it while Shadow was unaware? I was inclined to think the latter. The code felt ... alien.

I logged on again, but this time I used a different back door. This one took me directly to Mekion's operating kernel. It is chancy to use, however, because Mekion can access my data as I access his. I found him in the virtual construct, a black robot hedgehog who radiates hatred and malice. I issued a command. He blocked it. Then his virtual shell bloated into a huge black thing with five heads, all lacking eyes. He attacked my shell and initiated logon to my system.

I logged out immediately. Mekion did not need the ammunition stored in my head. The force of his attack, and the power of my recoil, sent me stumbling backwards in a defensive stance.

Shadow sat up, feeling the metal side of his head. "What happened?"

I straightened up. "Mekion has ... unusual defenses. I cannot remain logged in long enough to accomplish anything." I looked at Mekion's red eye. What horrors did he carry in his databanks that not even Shadow knew about?

Shadow rubbed his face as if it pained him. "What did he do?"

"He has acquired new security software," I said. "I have never seen anything like it." I looked down at my chaos rune. I could attempt to use my electron-control on Mekion, but I feared that alien thing inside of him. I had no wish to grapple with it again so soon. Besides, my journey was incomplete. Until I located the Master Designer, I could not hope to conquer Mekion.

"I shall be in touch, Shadow. I must depart now."

Shadow leaped to his feet, dismay written across his face. "So soon? You can't do anything about Mekion?"

My head hurt just thinking about it. "No Shadow, not now. I must complete my own journey first. I still believe that you can defeat Mekion yourself." I turned away and pulled out the violet emerald.

"Mecha," said Shadow, horrified, "I can't even communicate with him!"

I glanced back at him. "He is your mind, Shadow. Conquer it." I teleported twenty miles south to the Mystic Ruins jungle.

There I sat on a stone in the shelter of the trees, and held my head in my hands for twenty minutes. Shadow's mind was ill. Perhaps I held the cure, or perhaps not. Left to myself, I was powerless to repair the damage I had wrought, and the old self-loathing washed over me. I hated my body, this tool I had manufactured. I hated my mind and its cunning and depravity. Why did I think that the Master Designer might show me kindness? I deserved none. For the creation of Mekion I ought to die, and his creation was only one of the loathsome things I had done during my existence. I deserved a thousand deaths. I deserved-

An alien stepped out from behind a tree ten feet from me.

I may deserve death, but I did not intend to die at the hand of the Black Arms.

Chapter 19: Allies

Chapter Text

The alien lowered its firearm at me, but that was all that it had opportunity to do.

I chaos controlled, tore its throat out, and ran. When time started, the alien died in confusion, firing repeatedly at the stone where I had sat.

I ran far enough to see that the train station had been captured by aliens. A flat, disk-shaped dropship hovered overhead, dropping bolts of plasma on the rail line to incinerate the tracks. I consulted the information network, but my signal's connection was denied. The invasion had begun.

I fled, using my Chaos Emerald to stop time or teleport. I could not fight so many. I wished that I had not abandoned Shadow, but there was nothing I could do about that now. My scanner showed his location was Sapphire City, which I assumed was also under attack. Aliens were everywhere. Dropships and smaller craft hummed overhead.

Finally my mental faculties surfaced from survival mode. I had a teleporter in my hands. Fool that I was, I was using it to teleport only short distances. I looked at a mountaintop in the distance-

And jumped there. Blessed silence. Nothing moved but the wind over the rock. Snow clung to the shade in patches. From this vantage point, I could see up and down the coast. Everywhere I looked were plumes of smoke, glints of light off distant ships, and occasionally a beam of light that arced down from the empty sky. Orbital strike lasers. I wondered what they were hitting. Without my satellite link, I could not see what was happening, and I feared that they had already destroyed the satellites. I scanned for them, and found no signals at all. Blast.

I ran through my database of connection possibilities, and arrived at my oldest entry at the bottom of the list. The space colony ARK had a satellite cluster, but it was old and slow. I was not certain if it was even powered. I queried it anyway.

It took a horribly long time-ten seconds-but the ARK sent back a handshake protocol. I logged on using Dr. Robotnik's information.

I queried for maps, and when I finally received them, they were grainy and of poor resolution. But they were maps. I tracked the alien strikes. They were hitting all the major cities, and their orbital lasers were busy destroying main roads, railways, airports, and shipyards. Any visible military forces were gone. But they left the population centers surprisingly intact. These had foot soldiers deployed to secure the population. This struck me as ominous. What did they want with the people? Surely they did not plan to simply set up a new government and let live. Not with the roads destroyed.

I checked Waterhall and Viperdale. No sign of invaders. The Black Arms were securing the major population centers first. I considered jumping back and stealing Aleda. No, she was safe at the moment. But at the first sign of alien activity in Waterhall, I would take her.

I lifted my pendant and breathed on it. The arrow lit, but instead of south, it now pointed northwest. Back toward Sapphire City. Surely it did not mean to take me back to Shadow? Or did it mean that the Master Designer moved from place to place?

I teleported in short hops, traveling by line of sight, making certain that I would not land amid enemies. Each time I checked the arrow. It led me to the outskirts of Sapphire City, then changed to the northeast. I followed it, curious.

I landed near the highway that cut north through the mountains. I hid in the brush. My scans showed a patrol of Black Arms on the road, and I must be cautious. I watched them stride by, twenty of them, some small and some gigantic and musclebound, clutching rocket launchers.

A voice spoke in my mental network, startling me so badly that my limbs twitched. "Greetings, Mecha. Query: are you fighting the Black Arms?"

A swarm of plasma rockets descended from out of nowhere and pummeled the squadron.

"Because I am," said the voice cheerfully.

I watched, bemused, as the aliens ran around in confusion,, unable to locate the source of the attack. The small ones ran to the giants, who fired their rocket launchers back in the direction the rockets came from.

"Warning," I said to the voice, "they are returning fire."

I heard the drone of an airplane engine. I looked up and saw a small blue biplane flying at five hundred feet, banking for a turn overhead. The aliens fired at it, but the pilot dove out of the way, and pelted them with more plasma rockets. The plasma splashed and burned like napalm. One giant alien took a rocket to the head, and toppled toward my hiding place. I scrambled backwards as it crashed to earth in the brush where I had been. I relieved it of its rocket launcher. It was so large that I could not lift it, so I braced it against a rock and unleashed its payload on the small aliens. They never knew what hit them.

"Aim for their eyes," I told the Tornado. No other biplane was equipped with such an innocent, yet enthusiastic artificial intelligence.

"Affirmative," it replied. More plasma rockets rained down, many finding their targets. I claimed another rocket launcher, and another two minutes saw the entire squadron of aliens killed.

The Tornado landed on the road, taxied to a halt, and folded itself up into its two-legged walker form. I strode up to it, and Tails peeked out at me. He wore a helmet and goggles, and grinned as I approached. "Hi Mecha! Fancy meeting you here."

"Interesting coincidence," I replied, wondering if the arrow had led me here on purpose. "The Tornado performed admirably, but its weapons are too light for slaying the Black Arms."

"We did all right," said Tails defensively.

"Only because I was there," I said. "Why are you here?"

"I was trying to get to Sapphire City," said Tails, irritated at my criticism. If he thinks that I shall be as pleasant as the Hedgehog, he is mistaken.

He pointed at the smoking city in the distance. "Sonic's down there, fighting aliens. The human president requested him specifically. But Sonic called us for help, so here I am."

"The Hedgehog called for help?" I said, astounded. "It must be terrible there if it is enough to overcome his ego."

Tails opened his mouth, but only spluttered in outrage.

I nearly smiled at him. "It is true, you cannot deny it."

"Can't you ever be nice?" said Tails, glaring.

"No," I said. I climbed into the backseat of the Tornado and strapped myself in.

"What are you doing?" Tails asked.

"Coming along to assist the Hedgehog," I said with a smirk. "Shadow is there as well. Perhaps we can both provide support."

Tails grinned and kicked the Tornado into gear.

We entered the city through one of the quadrants still held by GUN. I transformed into my fox-disguise, and Tails asked if they asked the soldiers if they had seen the Hedgehog. They told him that the Hedgehog was much deeper in the city, downtown, where the hottest fighting was. No surprise. It had been the same back in Robotropolis; I had been continually amazed at the Hedgehog's brazen stupidity. It is a wonder he has lived so long.

We moved through GUN's portion of the city in relative safety. It had all been evacuated, so the streets were empty, all the storefronts and houses barricaded and dark. Occasionally we passed GUN posts, occupied by humvees and the occasional tank. Tails showed them his identification and they waved him through. I received the impression that GUN viewed us as expendable. Racists.

We reached the frontier, otherwise known as Main Street in the middle of town. We could hear gunfire and smell smoke. My scanners showed aliens four blocks southwest, and nearby stood a burned-out humvee. No bodies, though. "Aliens are south of us and-wait," I said, peering west along the street. "Shadow is moving toward us at ninety miles an hour-"

I was still speaking when he flashed past, a skating black blur. A second later the street lit with orange firelight, and a burning whirlwind of a bird roared past, radiating heat and fury. Tails and I shielded our faces. Then it was gone, leaving the street and buildings cooling and overhung with a curtain of smoke.

Tails lowered his hands. "What in the heck?"

"Nox's phoenix form," I said. "Unless I am mistaken, he was pursuing Mekion."

We sat in silence a moment.

"I wonder what Mekion did," said Tails in a small voice.

"Perhaps we should find out," I said.

It was not difficult to follow the phoenix's trail. We simply watched for melted asphalt. Eight blocks west, we found the remains of a human blockade. The blockade had been blown against the surrounding buildings as if a bomb had detonated. Five human soldiers and the Hedgehog sat on the sidewalk, looking dazed and bandaging wounds with their first aid kits open at their feet.

"Sonic!" cried Tails. He parked the Tornado at the curb and leaped out of the co*ckpit. The Hedgehog looked up with a dazed grin. "Hiya little bro. Care for some toast? Because Shadow just toasted us."

And not with drink, I noted, observing the cinders that remained of the soldiers uniforms. I disembarked from the Tornado as well. The Hedgehog looked at me and squinted. "Mecha? Is that you?"

"Yes," I said. "What happened here?"

"Mekion was trying to kill me," said the Hedgehog, still grinning as if his face was stuck that way. "I ran from him and it made him mad. I came here. He jumped on the blockade and said Chaos Blast. Everything blew up. Nox kept us all alive, just. Then he chased Mekion off. You know, Mecha, making Mekion was a really bad idea. He's twisted."

"He is insane," I said. "I apologize for his actions. He was never meant to cause so much harm."

"Shadow's pretty nuts, too," said the Hedgehog. "Fighting aliens with their own guns and all ..."

It was strange to stand there and feel annoyed by the Hedgehog, while at the same time pitying him. I had never imagined that I might one day feel sorry for my nemesis, and I was uncertain how to behave. My initial idea was to kick him in the head hard enough to render him unconscious, so he would stop talking. But that would be unethical. He was already injured.

As I pondered my course of action, there came a flash of fire, and Nox materialized. He had returned to chao-form, and looked lost and confused. "I'm so sorry, you guys," he said to the Hedgehog and the soldiers. "I meant to heal you all the way, but I didn't have enough power." His eyes moved to Tails, then me. "Mecha!" he exclaimed. "You came back!"

"Not soon enough," I said.

My scanner picked up a hostile object fifty feet above the street. A lone creature like a horned bat-another of the winged aliens-flew over us, circled, then flew back the way it had come.

"We must depart immediately," I said. "The Black Arms know that we are here."

The Hedgehog struggled to rise, and Tails had to help him stand. "I'll teleport us back to Command," he said. "No point in holding this place anymore, seeing as Mekion nuked it." He had everyone lay a hand on one another's shoulders. Tails and I touched the Tornado, and I picked up Nox. His body was still hot, and he trembled with fatigue. I felt the familiar ripple of power that accompanied a teleport, and I channeled it through my rune to increase its power.

We appeared in a wide, dim room that was lit by TV monitors. GUN technicians sat before them, watching or speaking into headsets. Several men in uniforms, who appeared to be commanding their troops from this room, spun and stared at us in surprise.

I met the Hedgehog's gaze. He was staring at me with his eyebrows lifted. He must have felt my power boost. I nodded at him, and he tilted his head sideways, curious.

But there was no time for an explanation. One of the soldiers we had rescued was making his report to his commanding officer. When he described Shadow's actions, the oldest and most decorated human turned and scowled at the Hedgehog. "Sonic," he growled, "you told us that Shadow would help us, not the aliens."

"Well, he did at first," said the Hedgehog. "Then he ... uh ..."

I stepped forward. "Shadow has an artificial intelligence built into his brain. Periodically it takes control. Shadow's actions today were not his own, but those of the AI."

The commander's eyes burned into my own. I gazed back without blinking. I was not intimidated by a mere human. "So," he said quietly, "Shadow has multiple personalities. How do you know this?"

The Hedgehog looked at me and shook his head. But I saw no reason to lie about it. "Because I built the AI into his brain."

The Hedgehog covered his face with both hands.

The commander's left eye twitched. "Are you a roboticist, like Dr. Robotnik?"

Now the Hedgehog shook his head desperately. This time I agreed with him. Placing my secret nanotechnologies in the hands of GUN could have dire repercussions. I met the commander's eyes and held them. "I am a private scientist. Shadow was my first experiment, and it seems that he is a failure."

The commander turned and spoke in an undertone to one of the other officers. I glanced at the Hedgehog. He was watching the commander warily. The commander turned back to us, and his face had a cruel, gleeful expression. "I have just given orders for Shadow to be shot on sight. He is unstable, hostile, and therefore must be eliminated."

"No!" the Hedgehog and I said at the same time. Nox leaped from my hands to the floor, where he stood stiff and quiet, looking as if he was considering attacking the commander.

I knelt beside him and spoke softly. "Nox, you must find Shadow and warn him."

"No, wait," said the Hedgehog, stepping up beside us. "Listen."

A junior officer was making his report. "...aliens have shifted the focus of their attack, sir. They are deploying troops to the Great Desert, but our maps show nothing out there."

"Send recon," said the commander. "I want to know what they're doing and why. Are they near that old hideout of Robotnik's?"

"Yes sir," said the other. "He has not challenged them yet, but he may."

"Perfect," said the commander. "If the old coot would wipe out the aliens for us, it would solve everything."

I looked at the Hedgehog. "You and I could teleport troops there."

"No," the Hedgehog whispered. "You've got to get out of here, Mecha. They know you're a scientist. They'll take you away and make you tell them everything. They did it to some of Sally's people from Mobitropolis ... we never heard from them again. And you're an android! Once they know that, they'll strip you down and reverse-engineer you."

"Yes," I said quietly. "I shall depart shortly. I must aid Shadow. Look after Nox."

"Actually, I have an idea," said the Hedgehog. "Nox, if you can get to the Floating Island ..."

I rose and moved around behind the Tornado, so the commander would not see me teleport. Tails watched me. "Leaving?"

"Hush," I said. "Yes, for my own safety."

"Stay in touch," said Tails. "We've got to all work together or we'll lose."

I nodded.

An idea occurred to me. If I stopped time, then teleported, I would merely vanish without the tell-tale chaos ripple. I did not want GUN to know that I could use chaos power. I grasped my emerald and whispered, "Chaos control." The world froze and fell silent.

I focused on the image of the spot where I had encountered Tails. I must return to my search for the Master Designer or all was lost. "Chaos relocate."

The world shattered.

There are no other words in my databanks for the phenomenon. The frozen room broke into large shards, as if I had broken the world like a pane of glass. I stood on nothing, surrounded by floating, twinkling shards. The image on each piece was moving. There was Sonic talking to Nox. There was Tails looking at the spot where I had been. There was one from a few minutes ago, when Sonic and I were speaking. My fox-form looks strange from the back ... I shall have to rework it.

One shard floats by, slowly toppling. It is the GUN room, but it is empty and dark. Perhaps everyone had departed for the night? I reach out and touch it.

The shards vanished, and I was in the dark, empty room. No one was there to see me depart now. I teleported.

I reappeared on the hillside where I had intended to land in the first place. Stars shone overhead, and in the distance, Sapphire City's lights sparkled yellow. Strange ... it had been mid-morning when we went to the command center. And why was the city not under siege? Surely they had not restored power already ...

I struggled to grasp the situation. The moving splinters had all been moments in time. I must have touched a moment when the control room was empty ... the night before the attack, perhaps?

I scanned for satellites, and actually located one. Yes, it was the night before the invasion. Somewhere my past self roamed Sapphire City, seeking Shadow. I had unlocked a Chaos Emerald method of time travel. Curious, I pinged my own scans, and located myself both here, and on a street downtown. I remembered the echo to my scans that night. I had been detecting myself.

The very idea terrified me, but fascinated me at the same time. If I could travel through time, I could go back and prevent myself from creating Mekion. I could defeat the Hedgehog. I could change all the failures in my life that I wished I could change. But I would have to plan carefully to avoid paradoxes ...

What was I thinking? I now had more time to find the Master Designer. I breathed on my pendant, lighting the arrow. North. I jogged off up the road. I would witness the invasion again, but if I could find the Master Designer sooner, then I did not mind.

It was amazing how many things conspired to keep me from my destination. In retrospect, I realize that I neared my destination many times, but was sidetracked by small, insignificant things like crossing a causeway at the moment when the Black Arms destroyed it with orbital bombardment. Or when a team of cloaked aliens stalked me for eight miles. I was forced far out of my way to avoid them, finally losing them by submerging myself in the Great River and swimming downstream. I despise water. It is a testament to their tenacity that I had to stoop to such a thing.

The time passed when my past self jumped back in time, meaning that I had at last caught up to my proper time. I was far from Sapphire City. I was near the mountains to the north, trying to follow the guidance of my arrow without encountering aliens. They avoided the woodland and kept to the roads, and thus I kept to the cover of the trees.

Near noon my scanners detected two lifeforms half a mile ahead. They appeared suddenly, as if emerging from stealth, or arriving via teleport. I detail-scanned them. The Hedgehog and Knuckles the echidna. What were they doing out here?

I traveled hurriedly toward their location. Presently I found them in a clearing at the foot of a low bluff. They sat with their backs to this bluff. The Hedgehog held no weapon, but Knuckles had a long, twisted glowing plasma bolt with a handle. A sword? Both Knuckles and the Hedgehog were dirty and smoke-smeared, and half of Knuckles's dreadlocks were blackened from fire. They sat without speaking, watching the forest around them.

Knuckles spotted me first. He jumped to his feet, gripping the plasma sword. I held up both empty hands. "Greetings, Knuckles. I am not a member of the Black Arms."

"Mecha," he said, lowering the sword. "You're the only one who would approach an armed person and say something like that." He sat down again and laid the sword on a rock with the blade in the air. I found it disquieting that he and the Hedgehog viewed me as zero threat. They must have been through horrors.

"What are you doing out here?" I asked.

The Hedgehog lifted his green Chaos Emerald. "Teleported. We had to get out of there. They nuked it." He was even more punch drunk than he had been that morning.

Knuckles rolled his eyes. "Sonic's not coping well. I was out in the Great Desert, checking out the Black Arms. They were digging up these ruins. Then Shadow showed up, and we discovered these fusion core things down in these rooms. Shadow turned them all on, the idiot. Turns out the ruins were actually this huge airship. It took off. I called for help and Sonic came in. GUN freaked out and hit the ship with a tactical nuke before it got out of the desert."

"We barely made it out," said the Hedgehog, and laughed. It was the type of laugh that only insane people use.

I was astonished, despite myself. "GUN actually used nuclear weapons? I did not think that they would."

"It really escalated the war," said Knuckles. "I hid the Floating Island in the South Island chain. There's jillions of islands down there."

I stood in troubled silence and looked at the sky. The satellites were gone again, so I could not see the extent of the devastation. I queried the ARK, and while I waited I asked, "What of Shadow?"

"He left to deal with Robotnik," Knuckles said. "He has a base there. Shadow left way before the nuke went off."

That was one small comfort.

"We can't beat them," the Hedgehog said suddenly. He stared straight ahead, his eyes glassy. "They're too strong. I'll have to go super. It's the only thing left to do."

"It's not over yet," Knuckles told him. "There's still hope."

"But Doom's got Shadow working for him," said the Hedgehog. "We're so totally doomed. Totally."

"Hedgehog," I told him, "you must snap out of this mental state. You must not think these things."

He jumped to his feet. "They're here, Mecha! They're gonna beat us! We're all gonna die! I need to run ..."

"No you don't," said Knuckles, grabbing the Hedgehog by the scruff of his neck and hauling him back to his seat. "You stay right here."

The Hedgehog slumped to the ground and shut his eyes. I had never seen him like this. I looked at Knuckles, who rolled his eyes again.

I looked down at my pendant. "Well," I said slowly, "you could travel with me. I am very close to finding the Master Designer."

The Hedgehog lifted his head and opened his eyes as I explained about the arrow. When I finished, he and Knuckles looked at each other. "Why not?" said Knuckles. "Maybe he'll help us win."

The Hedgehog nodded, and they rose to their feet.

I hoped that the hedgehog might recover a bit along the way. I was not certain if I actually wanted them with me when I located the Master Designer, but I could not abandon them. I have changed much since two years ago, when I was the lead threat to Mobius. Now I wanted to see Mobius saved as much as they did, and I was even willing to travel with them. I did not hate the hedgehog anymore, but I still disliked him. Fortunately I could tolerate his presence, which was a good thing, for I think he might have died otherwise.

We traveled northwest, back toward New Mobitropolis. Sometimes we teleported, but Knuckles and I did not trust the Hedgehog to teleport us. I teleported us myself. Knuckles was extremely interested in my chaos rune and how it worked. I explained about it as we traveled.

When I finished, he said, "Let me get this straight. This Melchizedek guy had a book of ancient echidna writings. And that symbol is a rune to let you use chaos?"

"Yes," I said.

Knuckles swiped his plasma sword at a bush and cut off several limbs. He seems to think best when engaged in violence. "I need to meet this guy," he muttered.

We topped a hill and looked toward Riverbase, the city fifty miles south of New Mobitropolis. To our horror, the sky above the city was full of hovering alien craft and flying alien creatures. I scanned for any radio signals, but found none. The city was overrun.

Chapter 20: A new master

Chapter Text

We crept around Riverbase, trying to see what the aliens had done with the people. From what we could tell, the civilians were locked indoors while the aliens patrolled the streets. At least casualties seemed minimal so far.

As the sun sank westward, we gained the southern reaches of the Great Forest. That was when we discovered that we had been followed.

Every time we teleported, the Chaos Emeralds emitted a small pulse of chaos energy. Three aliens clad in gold armor and cloaking devices had apparently followed us for miles. As we entered the Great Forest, they attacked us.

They could not have attacked a more formidable trio.

I am an assassin, as you know. Knuckles's preferred method of exercise is digging tunnels through rock with his fists. And the Hedgehog's terror had turned him into an utter loon. He tore into the aliens in a spindash, screaming, "See how you like it!" He held his alien's complete attention with a whirlwind of attacks. I recognized the speed; he used to fight me like that. I did not envy the alien.

The other two aliens came after me, perhaps sensing the presence of the emerald in my pack. First I ducked between them, seized their weapons, and tried to tear them out of their hands. But these aliens had their firearms chained to their armor. Curses. One grabbed me by the right arm, its hands burning into my biometal. I slung it over my head in a judo throw, smashing it to the ground on its back. As it scrambled to right itself, I turned to deal with the other alien, only to have it club me with the butt of its gun.

I fell with a dent in the top of my head. It infuriated me that these creatures always managed to injure me. Not even Robo Knux can do that. I swiped at its nearest ankle and nearly cut to the bone. Molten blood splattered the ground. To my chagrin, it stomped my already scarred leg with its bleeding foot, letting its blood burn me further. I fought and twisted, trying to escape.

The alien whom I had knocked down now grabbed me and stretched out my right arm. It pulled a knife from a hilt in its armor. They planned to cut off my arm for the rune?

Fortunately I was not alone or things might have gone badly. Knuckles walked up behind the alien standing on my leg and tapped it on the shoulder. It turned, and he punched it in the face so hard that I heard its skull crack. It flew over me and collided with the knife alien. They fell in a heap. Knuckles tore into them with his plasma sword, and stabbed them until the sword burned out and both aliens were very dead.

The Hedgehog stooped over me and offered his hand. I took it and slowly stood up. I had just accepted help from the Hedgehog. The world must indeed be going insane. But this was no time for old feuds ... my leg was even more injured than before. I waited for my biometal to heal around the hardening lava-splatters, then ran a diagnostic. Thirty percent of the nanites in my skin had been destroyed. The nerves, however, had not. Putting weight on it was exceedingly painful.

The Hedgehog and Knuckles were panting, but much calmer than they had been all day. Perhaps it had been the tension of pursuit that had so unmanned the Hedgehog, for his eyes had lost the crazy glint. He peered at my leg. "Dang, Mecha, that looks awful."

"It is very uncomfortable," I said through my teeth. "Perhaps we should teleport to Knothole rather than walk?"

"We can't stay there, though," said Knuckles. "The aliens wanted the Chaos Emerald. They must be tracking them somehow. We can't lead them to Knothole."

"You lack the technology to repair me," I said. "I have no need to remain in Knothole and shall move on. You two, however, lack my stamina. Night approaches and you need shelter."

The Hedgehog dug a finger into his ear. "I must be hearing things. I thought I just heard Mecha being considerate."

Knuckles punched him lightly in the shoulder. "Oh shut up." Knuckles offered me his arm. "Let me help you, Mecha. We'll go ahead and teleport." His voice was kind. Strange how a little kindness on my own part is reciprocated tenfold by those around me.

The Hedgehog teleported us to Knothole village. Knothole was in a quiet uproar. It was deathly quiet, yet people ran here and there, carrying weapons and looking frightened.

Knuckles and the Hedgehog helped me to Tails's workshop and helped me to sit in a chair. Then they departed to contact Sally and discover what was happening. Tails and the Tornado were not in Knothole, and the workshop was overly warm from the sun beating on it all day. I guessed that the Hedgehog and Knuckles still thought of me as a robot, and thus did not realize that I, too, enjoyed the comforts of indoors.

Well, one cannot have everything. I settled down to rest while I could, and let my body begin reconstruction of the damaged material in my leg.

I awoke two hours later. Outdoors it was dark, and Tails was rolling open his garage door to allow the Tornado to enter. It clanked inside like an obedient dog, and parked itself in its corner. "Hello Mecha," it said to me. "Query: are you injured?"

"Mecha?" gasped Tails, dashing in and looking for me. "Where?" He spotted me and grinned. He dashed to my side. "I didn't know you were here! How come you're in here and not with the others? What happened to your leg?"

"Aliens are invading Mobius," I said acidly. "That is what happened to my leg. And 'the others' put me in here. I assume that their discussion is classified." I would like to be kinder to Tails, really. But his friendliness is so overwhelming that I always feel compelled to knock him down a little. I am not the greatest invention since nano-robotic neural integration.

Tails inspected my leg, bending close but not touching it. "Looks like you burned it. Was it plasma?"

"Alien blood," I said. "Their core temperature is over four hundred degrees."

"Wow." Tails dashed to his workbench, rummaged among the objects there, and returned with a metal can. "This is nanite repair paste," he said, thrusting it under my nose. "I can paint it on your leg if you want."

Like I said, his helpfulness is annoying. I almost told him no, but I was curious to see if the paste might work. "Yes, please do," I said with a sigh.

The paste provided instant relief from the pain. Tails brushed it on gently with a paintbrush, trying not to hurt my burns any worse. It had a sharp chemical smell.

"I'm glad Sonic's back," said Tails as he worked. "Him and Knuckles got sent out by GUN, and it was really dangerous. I was down in Sapphire City from this morning, remember? I barely got back. Riverbase got captured, and they're saying that the Black Arms will march on New Mobitropolis in the next few days. At least they're not killing people the way Leviathan did."

"Is there any news of Shadow?" I asked.

"Not really," said Tails. "People say they've seen him with the aliens, but we're not for sure."

With the aliens. I wondered bitterly if he had completely sided with them, or if it was only Mekion making him act. I also wondered if Shadow had succeeded in locating the other Chaos Emeralds. Would he truly give them to Black Doom, or keep them for himself? I wished that I could predict his actions, but he had become so random that I could not.

Tails screwed the cap back on the can of paste. "How's your leg feel?"

"Better," I admitted, rotating my ankle. "That is a remarkable substance."

"I made it," said Tails, puffing out his chest. "I use it to repair the Tornado's nanotech parts."

"Fascinating," I said, rising to my feet. "Thank you, Tails, but I must depart now."

I walked outdoors. Tails followed me. "Why not stick around, Mecha? It'd be great if you helped us."

"I will help you more by departing," I replied. "Ask the Hedgehog why. But I shall perhaps return afterwards, when the war is over."

"Okay." Tails's ears flattened, and he stood and watched as I strode into the woods.

Once alone, I missed his company, annoying as it was. Being alone is a lonesome circ*mstance. I missed Aleda sharply. As I walked, I queried the ARK and summoned a satellite photo of Waterhall. It still looked undamanged, but the Black Arms may hold it and I would never know.

I breathed on my pendant. The arrow ignited, pointing due north. Its color had changed to red. Perhaps I was at last drawing closer to the Master Designer.

I traveled all night, leaving Knothole far behind. The trackless woods hindered my speed, so I kept to the outskirts, where I could run from time to time, as well as watch for Black Arms. I did not detect any, but I guessed that as soon as I used my Chaos Emerald, they would descend on me like locusts.

Toward dawn my leg began to hurt again, and fatigue swept over me. Pain seems to magnify exhaustion, I have noticed. I considered sleeping there on the ground, but the idea of being attacked while resting was unappealing. I made note of the spot, then teleported back to my base in the Ice Cap mountains.

It was cold, dark, and untouched by enemies. I wanted only to rest. I limped toward my quarters, and flicked the base with a cursory scan as I went.

Lifeform ping. Mekion.

I halted and re-scanned. Was I mistaken or was Shadow actually here? My second scan showed him on his bunk in his old room.

I rished to the door and threw it open. "Shadow," I exclaimed, "what are you doing here?" I wanted to add, "And if you are here, where is Black Doom?" but restrained myself.

Shadow lay on his metal side with Nox beside his head. He slowly sat up, his living ear flattened, almost pleading. "I used to live here. I needed somewhere to spend the night."

His fur was dirty, his metal tarnished and grimy. Mekion's eye was no longer a red iris. It was a series of red and orange lines, as if bearing witness to his instability. Nox was dirty, too, especially his feet. My eyes moved to the shelf above Shadow's head, where lay the two blue Chaos Emeralds, the red, and the orange. So he was collecting them. My worst fears were confirmed. I felt as if my synthetic heart had just been crushed inside of me. "Are you working for Doom?" I asked.

"No!" Shadow exclaimed, stiffening and clenching his fists. His eyes darted from side to side. "I have to ... have all seven .. to defeat him!"

Oh Shadow, you have always been a lame liar. He stared at me defiantly, and I gazed back at him. My creation and my slave, now enslaved to another. When would it all end? And why did he think that he had to lie to me? Perhaps he was also lying to himself.

I stepped into the room and sat on the bunk across from him. "Shadow, there are things that you must know." My eyes lingered on Nox. At least he had not let anything happen to his chao.

"Where's Aleda?" Shadow asked, noticing my look.

"Safe," I said, and began a summary of the Black Arms invasion. I told him which cities I had seen them capture, what structures they destroyed, and how if they received the Chaos Emeralds, they would capture the rest of Mobius with ease. I concluded with the only solution I could see; that either Shadow or the Hedgehog used the Chaos Emeralds to destroy the Black Comet.

"Did you know that Dr. Robotnik is repairing the ARK?" Shadow said suddenly.

We stared at each other. That explained the ARK's satellite support. Perhaps the Eclipse Cannon was also operational?

I rose and touched the four Chaos Emeralds. "Three emeralds left," I observed. "Do you know where they are?"

He shook his head. I told him. Then I added, "When you have acquired the other two, I will give you mine. But you must not let them fall into enemy hands."

He nodded, his eyes like stone. "Never. Thank you, Mecha."

I rose to my feet and limped to the door. I paused there and looked back at him. "So much is at stake, and I can do next to nothing. If you need help, do not hesitate to ask." I raised my right arm and displayed my rune. "This allows me to use chaos energy like a Mobian. I believe that I even know how to restrain Mekion temporarily."

Shadow smiled a little. "He still has the three laws. I saw them."

I actually smiled in return. "That is good news." I turned to leave.

Shadow called after me, "I'll save Mobius, Mecha. Black Doom's still not as good at chaos as I am."

"I know," I said, and left him.

He teleported away before I reached my room. I flung myself on my bunk and surrendered to sleep. There was nothing else I could do.

I awoke hours later, refreshed. The pain in my leg had subsided to a dull ache. My nanite skin was forty-seven percent repaired, although the hardened alien blood remained embedded in my tissue. I would have to surgically remove it later. In the meantime, my blue metal leg was now mottled with silver and black. I hoped that I would not have to do any strenuous running today, for I doubted that my leg would hold out against such activity.

I ate some cold rations, and teleported back to the spot in the forest that I had left. It was one PM, and the sun was high overhead. The tree canopy was full of birds marking their territories with audio projection, and the air was just over eighty degrees. My scans detected no aliens, but if they were hunting Chaos Emeralds, then they were probably on their way already. I checked my pendant and set out.

As I walked, I brooded about Shadow. Where was he now? What crimes had he committed while I slept? Had he already given the emeralds to Doom? Why did Doom want the Chaos Emeralds, anyway? To power a superweapon, I supposed dismally. Or open a portal to their home planet and summon the rest of his civilization. A ruler who possessed all the emeralds could rule indefinitely.

My thoughts turned to Melchizedek and the Master Designer. Charr had said that Melchizedek was waging constant war for the inhabitants of Mobius. Would he let Mobius fall to an invading host? I doubted it. But so far it seemed that he had done little to prevent it. If Melchizedek was the Master Designer, then I would be disappointed. I was expecting a God, a being of infinite power and knowledge. Melchizedek was only a hedgehog. A gifted hedgehog, it is true, but only a hedgehog.

The arrow led me north, up the Great River and across its floodplain, into the trees beyond that. By now I was miles beyond New Mobitropolis, out in the wilderness. Silvaline was the next town, thirty miles off. The forest was dense and wild, and my scans detected many wild nonsentient animals. Once I met a bear as I circled a huge boulder. We looked at each other in surprise. I brandished my claws and snarled, and the bear ran for its life. I was in no mood to be trifled with. I had never been on good terms with nature, and this forest, with its reaching branches, blackberry vines to stumble over, and brambles to scratch my skin, was making me hate it worse than usual.

The forest opened up, and I stepped out onto the bank of the Great River. It flowed blue and sparkling beneath the sun, and on its far bank-

I stared and clutched my pendant. But there was no more need of direction. I had arrived.

Standing on the far side of the river was a temple. But not a poor, imitation temple like that of Mun-Icytho. This was a vast building in the midst of the trees that soared eight stories in the air. My scans showed, to my disbelief, that it was made mostly of gold. It had seven tall, needle-like towers, each set with crystal windows that flashed in the sun like prisms. It was intimidating, yet it had a curious appeal that drew me toward it. Why was such a fantastic structure in the middle of an uninhabited wilderness? What would I find inside?

I plunged recklessly into the river and floundered across-I do not swim well, and the current hindered me at the center-but at last I gained the far side. Dripping wet, I hurried to the temple doors.

They were made of a white, glassy substance, and set with colored jewels. They were many times taller than I, and I stood on the doorstep, hesitant to touch them. What would I encounter when I entered this place? Another imposter-god like Mun-Icytho, and fanatical followers? Or the Master Designer himself? My logical mind wanted to insist that this was another fake, but my body said otherwise. Power radiated through those doors like white-hot heat, and it made every fiber tremble within me.

Suddenly I was terrified. My purpose for finding the Master Designer was to discuss how I had plagiarized his design of organic life with the model I had built within my biomechanical body. I had hoped that he would be merciful to me, but feared that he would not. Now that fear rose and engulfed me. On the threshold of discovery, I was frozen in panic. What if my death waited on the other side of these doors?

Under my fear, however, a cold, rational part of me knew that if anyone ever deserved death, it was me. Foul, evil killing machine that I am. I should have been destroyed years ago, and each time that my body was damaged seemingly beyond repair, it should have been the last. Yet someone always repaired me.

I looked at the engravings on the white doors, and at the way the sun illuminated rainbows in their surface. Like pearl. With that observation came the memory of Melchizedek telling me that I could not help Shadow until I found the Master Designer. I could not help Shadow if I was dead. Therefore, perhaps I was not meant to die just yet. I laid a hand on the white door and pushed.

It swung open on silent hinges. Inside was a vast open space filled with colored light. The sunlight was refracted into rainbows as it fell through the crystal windows. The floor was tiled with white marble and gold, and it all combined into blinding brightness. I thought I saw someone standing in the midst of the light, but I was not certain. The light defied my scanners, washing out their signals. Squinting, I stepped inside the temple and let the door close behind me.

"Welcome, Mecha-bot two," said a voice. "Do not be afraid. Your journey is at an end at last."

The light changed, and I looked.

Then I fell flat and covered my face. I had glimpsed, in that one instant, both perfection and infinity. The being before me was so perfect that his very perfection threatened to incinerate me like impurities from refined metal. His infinite mind was like falling forever into deep space.

My terror was far worse than when I had stood at the door. Then it had been fear of the unknown. Now I knew what I feared. A God was so far beyond my experience-so far outside my world-that I wanted to run, to hide. To escape from that horrible perfection that revealed in me every disgusting thing. I wished that he would slay me on the spot and end my suffering. I huddled there on the floor in a pathetic heap and waited for the end, unable to even look up.

I felt a touch on my shoulder. "Rise, Mecha," said the voice. "Do not fear."

I risked another look. Standing over me was not the glorious being of light, but Melchizedek.

I shakily climbed to my feet. "What happened?" I asked. "Where did the God go?" Then I looked into Melchizedek's eyes. In them I saw eternity. Suddenly I seemed to see him on multiple planes. On one he was a hedgehog, but on others he was God, shining and splendid, attended by a million lesser beings of light on all sides. I blinked and the vision passed.

I fell to my knees. "Forgive me, Master," I begged. "I've been so blind ..."

He smiled and lifted me to my feet. "You had to make your journey, Mecha. It took a long time to prepare you for this moment."

"But ..." I looked around the golden temple, still full of light and rainbows. "Why not inform me when I was with you in Viperdale?"

His smile warmed me like the touch of the sun. "You would not have believed me. Besides, you were able to assist Sonic, Tails, Knuckles and Shadow. Had you remained with me, that would not have happened."

"What about Aleda?" I asked. "Will I ever get her back?"

"In time," said Melchizedek. "First, we must do much to ensure that you can assist Shadow. He will be here in two hours to ask for your Chaos Emerald."

Despite the warmth of the light, I suddenly felt cold. "He has the other six?"

"He will shortly," said Melchizedek. "First, there is an issue that we must resolve. I believe you had a copyright dispute?" He looked at me with the utmost gravity.

I wanted to fall and cover in my acute embarrassment. Next to the creative power of such a being, my own scientific achievements were nothing. "Yes," I said, staring at the floor. "I copied your design in my attempts to make myself more organic. I ... am at fault. I beg your pardon, or barring that, I will accept whatever punishment you deem suitable."

He knew this already. He had followed me across Mobius on my quest. If he had been going to kill me for it, why not back then?

I looked up and saw compassion in those infinite eyes. "I forgive you," he said quietly. "What is more, I shall adopt you into my own family."

"But I belong to Robotnik," I said hopelessly.

Melchizedek grinned suddenly. "Not anymore." He held up a stack of papers, and I recognized Dr. Robotnik's signature at the bottom.

The sight staggered me. "Where did you get those?"

"I bought you for a great price," said Melchizedek. He placed his hand on my forehead, and I felt a warm swell of power. "I now mark you with my name," he said. "The Dark Ones can no longer touch you." He withdrew his hand, and took my right hand. He examined my chaos rune. "This has completely healed. We have much to do before Shadow arrives."

He was still Melchizedek, but a deeper, richer version that I had never known. It was as if I could finally see him in sharp focus. He wore his hedgehog form like a robe to hide his brightness, but it was always there underneath. After he marked me, my lingering terror was replaced by awe. I belonged to the God of the Universe, the Master Designer.

I showed him my two powers; the electron control and the time travel. He told me their names. Controlling an electron was Chaos Pierce, and time travel was Chaos Shift. I could initiate either by speaking the command. Chaos Piercing was fairly straightforward, and he said that I had already mastered it. But Chaos Shifting put the person in a null-time space where all times were the present. But, being a creature of a time-space universe, remaining in null-time would eventually freeze my heart and kill me if I remained too long. But the longer I remained in null-time, the further back or forward I could see.

We had barely completed this training when the front door opened, and Shadow entered. It took me a moment to recognize him, however. He wore a black, scaley bodysuit through which his spines protruded, giving him the look of a Black Arms alien with spiky hair. A barely-visible forcefield shielded his face. "Mecha?" he said, standing on the threshold of the temple. His eyes rested on me alone, ignoring the glory of the temple all around us. I looked at Melchizedek, and suddenly understood. Shadow could not see any of it. To him this was only a clearing in the woods. I walked up to him. "Shadow?"

I stopped just out of his reach. Mekion's arm twitched. His robotic eye was now a series of dancing colored patterns, like a fractal. Shadow himself was even grimier than he had been that morning, and his suit stank of alien. His living eye was dull and dead. "Mecha," he said, but hesitated and looked down. He held the orange Chaos Emerald in one hand.

I felt compassion for him. My poor creation, still suffering. I said, "You've come for the last Chaos Emerald, haven't you?"

He nodded and began explaining. He told me about how Doom was using him to find the emeralds against his will, and how Mekion kept seizing control and making him kill people. He told me how Doom had taken Nox, how Mekion had broken the Hedgehog's jaw, and how Shadow had been trying to destroy the GUN commander's walker. Now Doom was keeping Nox was insurance against the retrieval of the last emerald. Shadow was at his wits' end and desperate to the point of violence.

I retrieved my violet Chaos Emerald from where it lay on the temple floor, and returned to Shadow, steeling myself for the task at hand. "I have to do something about Mekion," I said. "Otherwise he will make you do something that you will regret."

"What can you do?" said Shadow, despair evident in the way his shoulders slumped.

"I have located the Master Designer, Shadow," I said, holding up my rune-covered wrist. "He also taught me many things about chaos power. My own unique powers in particular." He looked quizzical, and I smiled. "The ability to modify machines is one of them. Please lie down."

He threw himself down on the floor. I knelt beside him, pressed my hand through the forcefield over his face, and touched his forehead. "Chaos pierce," I whispered.

Mekion screamed and Shadow writhed. I retained my grip on him and drilled my electrons into the semi-organic nano-neural structure of Mekion. Mekion sent those data-devouring dogs after me, but I erased their coding even as they appeared. I had no user shell for them to target. His alien security algorithm tried to lock down my activity, but I was not a program; I was the electricity that fed his programs. I slipped through Mekion's defenses like water through a grate, and found the tangled coding that formed the kernel of the alien malware. There was no time to unravel it, so I simply fenced it in with infinite loops and dead-end strings. Mekion would break out of such things eventually, but it would buy Shadow time.

I attacked Mekion himself. He fought back with power surges that absorbed my electrons, but I simply grabbed more. His consciousness was independent of the software. How curious. Removing him would be extremely difficult. But I could lock him down. I erased his code-bridges between himself and Shadow's brain, reducing his control percentage to zero.

I released my control and sat back, panting and shivering. That had been more difficult than I had anticipated. "I have temporarily imprisoned him," I told Shadow. "He was able to fight me, which should not be possible."

I helped him sit up. Shadow's robot eye was dark, but his living eye was alight with new hope. He flexed both hands. "Thank you, Master."

I flinched. "Please, do not return to calling me that." I rose and fondled my Chaos Emerald. I did not wish to part with it.

Shadow stood up. "I should get back."

I looked at him. "Shadow, I must ask. Are you handing the emeralds over to Doom?" I asked because I wanted a direct answer. If he lied to me again, then so be it.

He looked down a moment, then up at me. "At this point, I have no choice. He has Nox."

At least he was truthful. I placed the emerald in his hands and laid a hand on his shoulder. "Than I shall come with you."

Chapter 21: Chaos shift

Chapter Text

Shadow teleported us thousands of miles above Mobius, into the Black Comet that hung in orbit. I boosted the power of our emeralds with my rune, and arrived feeling disoriented. We appeared in a two thousand square foot room lit by dim purple bioluminescent bulbs on the walls. The floor underfoot was hard, wrinkled leather, and the ceiling ... well, I tried not to think about the ceiling. The atmosphere was so full of methane that it hovered just under toxic levels, and breathing was painful. I tried to do it as little as possible.

Awaiting us in the center of the room was Black Doom and the Eye. I had never seen them first hand, and ran scans on them. Black Doom, the being decked in fluttering fabric and jewelry, had only half a body. He floated on a anti-gravity device. The starfish-like Eye was twice as large as Black Doom and my scans revealed that most of its weight was made of neural structure. A hive mind for the Black Arms, perhaps?

Black Doom and the Eye stared at me. I stared back, unflinching, as Shadow explained that I had come to join the aliens before the prosperity ritual. Prosperity ... ritual. I thought of all of the imprisoned people on Mobius, held hostage by the aliens. A ritual to increase the prosperity of the aliens ... yes. We must destroy them quickly.

Shadow refused to hand over the Chaos Emeralds until Nox was returned to him, an act for which I silently commended him. Black Doom pulled Nox out from under his robes, regretful of losing the opportunity to experiment on him. If the Arms captured Mobius, they would exterminate the chao this way. I pondered the effectiveness of the Eclipse Cannon on this ship.

I detected thirty-five lifeforms moving up the outer hall toward the doorway. Most of them had high technology signatures. I turned and saw the Hedgehog, Tails, Knuckles and Rouge run in, followed by a platoon of GUN armored mechs. The Hedgehog's jaw was bandaged with a strip of gauze around his head, and his mouth was taped shut. He glared at me, then waved at Shadow. The others yelled for Shadow not to give Doom the emeralds, and the GUN commander Striver ordered Doom to surrender.

Black Doom's laugh made me wince. It dripped with scorn and disregard. He welcomed them all, and waved a hand. The horrible ceiling flexed, and tentacles burst from the floor and walls and wrapped around the mobians and mechs. They crushed the mechs, but only kept the mobians from escaping.

Doom teleported the Chaos Emeralds out of the room and thanked them all. Knuckles yelled at us to do something. Shadow looked at me desperately, and I said to him over the network, "Do nothing, say nothing." It was not yet time to fight. Not while there were hostages involved.

Doom told us that we would all be used as batteries and food, and how he was doing us all a favor, seeing as we would wipe ourselves out anyway. Then he and the Eye departed through a side door. I told Shadow to go after him while I saw to the others. He hesitated, then thanked me with his eyes and sprinted through the door, as well.

I flexed my right hand. It was time to truly test the power of my rune. I channeled the chaos field through it and said, "Chaos control." Time stopped. The power felt different from the jagged spikes emitted from a Chaos Emerald. This power was smooth and even, like the chaos pearl. Well, of course. The chaos pearl had been made from the global field. I wondered if this was why the kitsune race had abandoned the use of the Chaos Emeralds.

I released the timestop and strode up to the Hedgehog, Tails and Knuckles. "I shall move you all to the ARK," I told the collective prisoners. "It is far closer than Mobius." I looked at the Hedgehog. "I would take you first, but I need someone who can speak. I must find a room large enough to hold you all."

Knuckles jerked his head at Tails. "Take him. He actually paid attention last time we were there."

Tails's face lit up.

Stifling a sigh, I laid a hand on his shoulder and teleported him out of the tentacle's grasp.

We reappeared in the only room on the ARK that I remembered with clarity: the control room. It was a round room with a tower of computer monitors stretching up the center to the ceiling. This was the ARK's nerve center where things like gravity and life support were maintained.

Dr. Robotnik sat in a chair before the monitors. Our entrance startled him, to say the least. He leaped to his feet. "Mecha! Tails! What-?"

The sight of him gave me a thrill. He was no longer my master, and I again felt that warmth that came when Melchizedek marked me as his own. "Hello Doctor," I said. "I am evacuating hostages from the Black Comet. We shall try not to disturb you." As he spluttered in shock, I turned to Tails. "You know their numbers. What area might accommodate them?" As I spoke, I was scanning the ARK, floor by floor, building a detailed map.

Tails's ears flattened, and he bit his lip in thought. "How about one of the labs? They're really big."

"Lead me," I said.

Tails dashed out the door, and I followed.

The hallway was dark, and our feet kicked up clouds of dust. Tails ran down the hall, counting doors, opened two wrong ones, and finally found a laboratory. True to his word, the room was large enough to accommodate thirty-one large mechs. It had once held much equipment, but it had been plundered long ago, leaving the room empty. "Excellent," I said. "I shall return momentarily."

I teleported back to the Black Comet, to find Knuckles and Rouge snarling insults at each other. "Please, do us all a favor and shut up," I told them. I conveyed the Hedgehog and Knuckles to the ARK, then Rouge, then the mechs. The mechs soon became tedious, for I could only move two at a time. Fifteen trips later, all were safely aboard the ARK. I slumped in a corner and closed my eyes. I have mentioned that prolonged chaos usage exhausts me. My ears were filled with an insect-like buzzing, and my heart thundered in my chest.

After a while, I became aware of a commotion going on. A voice was speaking over the loudspeaker system, but it was drowned out by shouting from the GUN commander. Knuckles was bellowing back, "No, you have to stay here, you idiots! I don't know who started the message and I don't care!"

Commander Striver roared, "You are in violation of military code two-two-zero-niner-niner! When we get back, I'll have your butt prosecuted for this, Echidna!"

"I'm outside of your jurisdiction!" Knuckles yelled back. "And you will stay HERE!"

I did not know who was more obnoxious, Striver or Knuckles. I tuned in to the ARK's wireless network and picked up the message. Interesting. A recording for Shadow from Dr. Gerald. I wondered what had set it off.

Tails dashed up to me. "Mecha! The Black Comet just teleported down to Mobius somewhere!"

I slowly climbed to my feet. Blast this fatigue. "Do you know where?"

"No," said Tails. "We can't get to the control room. Robotnik has the door locked."

"I shall go," I replied. "I shall notify you of developments."

Teleporting to the control room was hard work. I vowed to rest after this.

Dr. Robotnik was not pleased to see me. "You again," he said. "What is it now?"

"The Black Comet has moved to the planet's surface," I said. "I must know where."

Robotnik pointed at a screen with a radar feed showing Sapphire City and a red blip that was the Comet. I was not surprised. Everyone tries to destroy Sapphire City first, for some reason.

Robotnik tapped a few keys and pulled up a video feed from the surface. The Comet hung over the city like a bloated tick, seeking a spot to burrow in and suck the life out of its victims. It anchored itself in place with long, barbed tendrils. Somewhere aboard that abomination was Shadow.

I scanned for his signal with the ARK's high-powered radio receiver and found it. "Shadow," I said, "I have evacuated all of the prisoners. There is a message here on the ARK playing over and over. I think you should see it, therefore I am patching it in." I transmitted Gerald's message.

As it played, I said to Robotnik, "Can the Eclipse Cannon destroy the Black Comet?"

He cast me a hateful look but said, "You remember what it did to the moon. I'd say yes."

"How are you powering it?" I asked.

"Solar," he grunted. "I've been charging it for a month." He turned his back on me and hunched over his console. And I did not care. Let him hate me. I daresay I deserve it.

Shadow's voice spoke over our network. "That was educational, but what do I do now?"

I looked at Robotnik. "Dr. Robotnik has been charging the Eclipse Cannon for a month. For what purpose, I do not know." I said aloud, "But he has consented to fire it at the Black Comet."

Robotnik glared at me over his shoulder, but made no protest.

Back on the network, I said, "It must be brought back into orbit, however."

"See, that's the problem," said Shadow. "It's down on Mobius right now."

"I am aware of that," I said sarcastically. "Relieve Doom of the emeralds and teleport the Comet."

"Easier said than done," said Shadow.

"You were trained for combat," I said, "and you have proven your viciousness before. I am confident that you are a match for him."

Shadow said nothing more. I waited, drumming my claws on the console. I despise waiting. In some respects, the Hedgehog and I are quite similar. I would have died rather than admit such a thing before I met the Master Designer. I mused on the encounter. His voice and eyes, his light, remained emblazoned on my memory banks the way the rune was etched into my arm. Somehow, his touch had freed something inside of me. Somewhere inside, I had kept a part of myself locked away to protect it from harm. My heart, perhaps. I guarded this part of myself with hatred and violence, warning away anyone who might pierce my defenses. Yet Aleda had done just that. Then Shadow. Now those defenses lay in ruins, yet I was not harmed. I was able to tolerate the Hedgehog. Perhaps even admit that we are alike. Not so much that I am his copy, but that aspects of our personalities are the same. It was refreshing.

I recalled that I had been going to keep Tails updated. I located an unused console and loaded the intercom program. I spoke into a dusty microphone. "Greetings. This is Mecha speaking. The Black Comet was teleported down to the planet's surface. However, Shadow is endeavoring to return it to space, where we shall utilize the Eclipse Cannon on it." I knew that leaving all of our fates in Shadow's hands would not instill them with much confidence. But I knew that with Mekion imprisoned, Shadow's strength would return.

I touched my earpiece and whispered to Melchizedek, "Master, if you can hear me, and if you are truly all-powerful, please allow Shadow to succeed."

"You gave him the help that I taught you to give," Melchizedek replied quietly. "You will help him one more time and all will be well."

One more time. My time-shatter ability. I wondered when it would be called for, and hoped that I saw the need in time.

The Black Comet vanished from radar. Robotnik and I both scrambled for the screen that showed the ARK's external viewports. There was the Comet, back in space, aligned perfectly with the Eclipse Cannon. A glowing gold dot soared away from the Comet. "He did it!" I exclaimed.

"About time," growled Robotnik. He opened the plexiglass shield over the Eclipse Cannon's firing controls. I rushed to the intercom to inform the others.

The Eclipse Cannon warmed up its lens, then fired a bolt of blue light at the Comet. To our disappointment, it only damaged the ship and did not destroy it.

A moment later Shadow appeared in a blast of chaos power that dimmed the lights and filled the screens with static. He was wrapped in Nox's phoenix body, wings and tail trailing on all sides. I squinted. No, Nox had merged himself into the line between Shadow and Mekion. Shadow grinned at me. I said, "Ingenious way of overcoming the mecha-fusion limitation! I never even considered using another chaos form as a buffer!"

"We're going to charge for another shot," Shadow said. He walked to the center console, opened a panel to reveal seven slots for the Chaos Emeralds, and thrust his fists into them. Power indicators leaped into the green.

"We have full power," Robotnik said. "Firing."

This time the beam blasted all the way through the Comet. Robotnik fired again, cutting through the Comet end to end. It rolled like a dying fish as its atmosphere vented, then exploded in red and blue flames.

"That was awesome," hissed a fiery-sounding voice. I realized that Nox's head curved just over Shadow's, his eyes burning like twin suns.

Shadow pulled his fists out of the emerald slots, looking smug. "Looks like I saved the world again. Maybe this time GUN will-" He broke off, flinching, and put his hands over his ears.

"What's wrong?" Robotnik and I both asked.

Shadow only shook his head and turned to me. He unsnapped the gold bands around his wrists and thrust them into my hands. "Doom's coming and I have to deal with him." He teleported.

Robotnik and I turned to the external viewscreens. A monstrous alien creature sat in the debris field from the Black Comet, devouring the debris. Robotnik uttered one choice expletive.

We watched as Shadow and Nox fought the thing. I fumed at my own powerlessness, but understood why my assistance had been so necessary. Shadow could not have fought both Mekion and Doom.

I updated the others via the intercom, then watched the battle, fingering Shadow's bracelets. I had never seen these before. I hoped that I would have the opportunity to ask him about them.

Suddenly, across the network, Mekion's voice cursed me and blocked the channel. Oh no. He had come back online. Dread crushed me, and all I could do was grip the bracelets and watch the viewscreens.

Shadow flew erratically, bouncing here and there as if Mekion was attacking him. Then Shadow began pummeling the alien from above, pushing it down toward Mobius. My hope flamed to life. Shadow was resourceful enough to use the alien's own bulk against it.

Ever so slowly the alien sank down and down ... then it was caught in the planet's gravity well. It fell and burned, and Shadow fell with it, his power protecting him.

Another fear struck me. In my mind's eye I saw Shadow, gray with death, lying in a smouldering crater as a fiery phoenix stooped over him. He had fallen and died the first time ...

I tracked their trajectory. Shadow would land somewhere in the rubble that remained of southern Metrocard. I channeled power through my rune and teleported.

I waited an agonizing half an hour, surrounded by collapsed buildings and smouldering pavement. It looked as if the aliens had aerial-bombed this portion of the city, leaving it in twisted ruins. I did not like the idea of Shadow landing in this area at high velocity. The rubble and debris looked lethal.

The alien did not survive reentry, and left a wonderful white smoke trail in the upper atmosphere. After a while, Shadow appeared on my radar, traveling well over the speed of sound. I saw Nox open his wings like a drag chute and begin to slow them down. I waited in anguish, wondering what would happen when they landed, and hoping that I was up to the task, whatever it might be.

I saw Mekion cancel Shadow's invincibility. Shadow and Nox unbonded, and Shadow fell, unprotected and vulnerable. So that was the thing I must amend. I braced myself, hoping I could Chaos Shift without a Chaos Emerald-

Shadow struck a sharp metal bar protruding from a building.

I cannot describe the horror of seeing a friend cut in half in midair. I shall not attempt it. The Mekion half fell apart instantly, but Shadow hit the ground, bounced and flipped and finally rolled to a halt at my feet.

He looked up at me with his remaining eye. Somehow he was still alive, but I hoped not for long. I bent over him and tried to speak, but my windpipe was clogged with tears. I choked. Shadow's mouth moved and mouthed the words, "Don't cry, Mecha ..."

Shadow is the one dying a horrible death, and he is attempting to comfort me? No. This must not be. It shall not end this way. No. No. No.

"Chaos shift!" I screamed.

The world shattered.

I thought that the tears in my eyes were making it appear that there were more pieces than last time. I wiped them away and found that this was not so. There were thousands and thousands of shards of time. This moment must have an infinite amount of variables. I watched as Shadow fell, and I chaos controlled and interrupted his fall. My body struck the metal bar, and it cut both of us. No.

I watched another shard. In this one I bent the bar out of the way. Then Shadow struck me, and we both died upon impact. No.

I watched it over and over, the variables changing a little each time. Sometimes I lived, and sometimes Shadow lived. I wanted both of us to live. But if it came down to it, Shadow was more important than I. I would pick a future where he lived if I absolutely had to choose.

Here was an unusual one. This shard showed me extracting Mekion while still in null-time. I watched with great interest as my potential self pulled a smoky black mass out of Shadow's head and threw it into the nothingness between the shards of time. Then I intercepted Shadow's fall. But wait ... after we landed, both of us moved. Yes! Mekion was the key! I touched that shard.

I now hung before a huge fragment that showed Shadow frozen in midair. I was still in null-time, but I sensed that as soon as I removed Mekion, I would enter this time. I reached for the metal side of Shadow's head, and my hand passed through it, ghost-like. But my fingers emerged covered in blackness. I pulled it out of Shadow and into null-time. The blackness was a malevolent consciousness, and it burned my hand with its hatred. I flung it away from me. Its blackness melded into the black space of null time. For an instant, however, I saw something. Far off, between the twinkling fragments, stood a white hedgehog. We stared at each other in bewilderment. Then he touched a shard and vanished. How strange. Another time traveler?

I would ponder it later. I stepped into my own time, kicked the metal bar out of the way, and grabbed Shadow.

Time resumed and Shadow's extreme speed nearly tore me in two. I wrapped my arms around him and tensed, waiting for that killer landing. We hit the ground and bounced thirty feet. I was on bottom. On the second bounce, I was again on bottom. If I was not, then Shadow would die. I felt things break. My damage percentage skyrocketed past one hundred percent. We bounced and rolled and tumbled in a whirlwind of pain. I kept shifting my weight so that I took the brunt of each impact. But this could not continue forever. At last consciousness deserted me.

I awoke slowly. I was not in pain ... yet. But I sensed that there were many things dreadfully wrong with my body.

Shadow lay beside me. "Mecha," he groaned, "where did you come from?"

His body was intact. In fact, he was scarcely injured at all. But his robotic half was completely offline. He was trying to sit up with one arm, but the weight of his metal half kept forcing him down. Mekion was gone, I thought smugly.

I tried to speak, but all that came out was a groan. I inhaled and felt something creak in my back that should not creak. I tried to speak again and this time formed words. "Shadow ... are you ..." I drew another breath. "...all right?"

"I'm peachy," he grunted, struggling in vain to sit up. "Mekion's gone and I can't move. You're really hurt, Mecha. Blast it, why did you do that?"

"Because," I gasped, "otherwise you died." My lung capacity had dropped to four percent. I consulted my damage readout and discovered ten pages worth of items. I had not watched the shard long enough to see how long I survived after impact. Unless I received aid soon, my life would end in twenty-six minutes. How lovely.

Shadow finally wrenched himself upright and looked down at me. His eye widened in horror. "Mecha ..."

Speaking was work, so I merely raised an eyebrow in reply.

"...is your back broken?"

"In six places," I wheezed. "Therefore ... nothing hurts."

Shadow's face did not change, but his eyes grew moist. Our positions had changed. Now it was he who grieved for me.

A light appeared in the sky. As it grew larger, I wondered if it was Melchizedek coming to usher me into the next plane of existence. Then I saw the wings and tail, and recognized Nox. Perfect.

Shadow looked up, as well, and his face lit up. Nox landed beside us and mantled us with his wings. "Are you all right?" he crooned to Shadow. "That beast Mekion unbonded us."

"Yeah, I'm fine," snapped Shadow. "Heal Mecha, he's dying. His back's broken. He saved me."

Nox turned his glowing eyes on me, and I saw in them a deep compassion and gratitude. He brushed me with his wingtips. "For saving Shadow, take all of my power, Mecha."

My damage meter dropped in spurts as the healing warmth bathed me. My back mended, and as the communication lines through my body were reconnected, I felt the incredible pain of my broken limbs. But those were healed and mended, as well.

Nox shrank back into a small black chao, and flopped on the ground, exhausted. I sat up and moved my arms and legs. My damage meter lingered at three percent, but I could deal with three percent. Shadow watched me. "So, Mecha, why can't I move?"

"I destroyed Mekion from null-time," I replied. "It also destroyed your motor control. I apologize. Now, if we could-"

A shadow fell over us. I looked up. Looming over us was the head of a large silver dragon. "There you are," it said. "Shadow, I want my emerald back now."

"Okay," said Shadow. "You have to hunt for it. It fell into this wrecked city somewhere."

Drasyre lifted his head and glared at the city, nostrils flared.

A green hedgehog scrambled up on a collapsed wall beside Drasyre. "Good grief!" he exclaimed. "What happened to you guys?"

"We are still alive," I said. "It was a difficult achievement." I stooped and helped Shadow rise by taking his mechanical arm. He picked up Nox in his living arm.

"I shall take you home and attempt repairs," I told him.

He looked at me. "Not until I have my emerald back. I can't use the field the way you can."

Drasyre walked around us and bounded away into the ruins, flapping his wings to lift himself over the worst wreckage. Spark followed him.

"What are their odds?" Shadow asked me.

I smiled. "Not prohibitively bad." I focused on the image of the orange emerald in my mind's eye, and teleported it into my hand. I repeated the process with my violet emerald. "There," I said. "Let them search for the rest. I have other matters to attend to." We teleported.

I stood in the midst of the rubble that remained of Mekion's operating system. Removing his core had left tangles of ruined code, and piles of broken nano-neural connections. Occasionally Shadow would try to move his arm or leg. The impulses would fire into the robotic motion center, but it was powered down. No one was there to drive it.

Mekion had been a copy of Shadow. I had assumed that Shadow would work well with himself, and put the copy in charge of the finer motion control. What I had not realized was that the only person whom Shadow could not tolerate was himself. Mekion had become a twisted perversion of Shadow, until at last I could extract him whole without damaging Shadow.

Yet an AI had to reside in this space. It could not operate any other way.

I opened a filing cabinet drawer and looked at the crumpled remnants of Mekion's database. Here were the schematics of that semi-living alien intelligence that Black Doom had uploaded. I tore it to shreds. I opened another folder. I stared at its contents for a long time. Then I turned it upside down and shook its contents onto the floor.

Out fell a blond-haired human girl. "Hello," she said. "Are you Mecha?"

"Yes," I said. "You are an AI of Maria."

"Yes," she said, tucking her hair behind one ear. "I was written by Mekion, compiled from Shadow's memories."

"What was your purpose?" I asked.

I scanned her code as she said, "Mekion could not replicate my actions convincingly in a virtual environment. He wrote me as a subroutine to his own systems."

Her code was clean and well-written, with none of the alien taint. Mekion had done the job thoroughly. "What was your ultimate purpose?" I asked. "Were you meant to harm Shadow in some way?"

"Oh no," said Maria, looking shocked. "My action tables would never allow that. Mekion planned to scrub me as soon as the construct ended, so I replicated myself in his databanks under false filenames."

I blinked. Impressive.

"I need to equip Shadow with an AI interface," I said. "In lieu of writing another AI from scratch, I shall use you." I touched her hair and clipped a fragment of metal into it. "But if you rebel the way Mekion did, I shall destroy you immediately."

She nodded. "Fair enough. I won't rebel, though. I love Shadow."

Which Mekion never did.

I took her to the motion control center and programmed her with the necessary data. I watched as she familiarized herself with the interface. "Mekion left this place a mess," she remarked. "Hello, Shadow. How are you today?"

I logged out. Shadow lay on a bench in the basem*nt of the house in Viperdale. He lifted his robot arm and moved it, and his left eye flickered on. He sat up and smiled. His pupil rotated colors, finally settling on blue. "But now my eyes don't match," he said. His eye changed to purple. "No way," he said. "Go with blue." His eye changed colors again as he looked at me. "Where did you find her, Mecha?"

"Mekion's databanks," I replied. "If she fails, as Mekion did, I shall erase her."

"No," said Shadow, stiffening. "No, I ... like her." He rose and walked around the room. His body worked perfectly. He picked up his Chaos Emerald. "I'm gonna teach her about chaos power. See you later, Mecha."

"Farewell," I said, and he teleported.

Chapter 22: Epilogue

Chapter Text

Mecha told me how I would have died. And now he's given me a new voice in my head. A pleasant, welcoming voice. One that I don't mind in the least. She looks exactly like how I remember Maria, and acts just like her, too. It's as if she's been resurrected and stuck in my head.

There remained one more thing to do.

I teleported here and there across Mobius, demonstrating for Maria. She squealed and clapped her hands. Mekion had never done that. I did not realize how damaged my mind was until he was gone. Maria took up a fraction of his space, and did not intrude on my thoughts. It felt like I had had a tumor removed from my brain. It would take me a long time to heal.

I teleported to Waterhall. The village looked intact, but one building had been leveled by fire-bombing. Guess which one.

I cursed as I ran toward it. "Watch your mouth, Shadow," Maria said.

"But Aleda!" I said. "If the chao gardens are gone, where's Aleda?"

"I am detecting no lifesigns," Maria said. "That includes bodies, Shadow. It was empty when they bombed it."

I rounded a corner and found a group of firefighters arranging a dozen aliens in bodybags, preparing to load them onto a truck. I dashed to a firefighter who was overseeing the rest. "Sir," I panted, "what happened to the chao?"

He glanced at me and grinned. "Oh, the breeders got wind that the aliens were coming. They smuggled the chao out. The aliens were still searching for them when GUN bombed the facility. Here they all are." He waved at the bodybags.

"Where did the chao go?" I asked.

The firefighter shrugged. "All over the place. People's homes. Ask around."

This I did. Maria helped by scanning the town for very small lifeforms. We uncovered many chao in hiding, but no Aleda. I wished that Mecha had showed me how to chaos-summon.

I sat glumly on the curb and thought, "We'll never find her, Maria. She was rare, and they'd have taken special precautions with her."

"Maybe so, maybe not," she replied. "Look over there."

Emerging from a shop across the street was a disheveled hare on crutches. Bouncing up and down on his shoulder was Aleda. His coat was full of holes from her claws, and there were bitemarks on his face and ears. I jumped up and ran to them.

Aleda's bouncing intensified when she saw me. "Shadow!" she squealed. "Hi hi hi! Where's Mecha? How is he? I'm hiding from aliens, it's so much fun! Anduvius is nice, isn't he?"

Anduvius looked as if he had not slept in days. I shook his hand, and his grip was limp. "Do you know Mecha?" he said hopelessly.

"Yes," I said, "why?"

He snatched Aleda off his shoulder and thrust her at me. "Take her back. Please. Get her away from me."

Over Aleda's cheers, I said, "What about her price?"

"The bottom has dropped out of the chao market," said Anduvius, hunching his shoulders. "Mecha's friend made a deposit for him. I assume he knows the fox Melthision? Yes. The deposit covers her full price now." He strode away up the street, straightening his ragged coat.

I looked down at Aleda. "Wait until you see Mecha's new chaos powers."

"Mecha has new powers?" she exclaimed. "What do they do?"

"Let him tell you," I said, and teleported.

The end