Mirror Image

XVI - The Incredible Exploding Hedgehog

Crimson seeped into white, before vanishing. Flurries of snow rested upon still corpses, before the bodies rose to their feet in a cloud of white dust. In the middle of a forest clearing, Shadow fought a losing battle.

One of the bodies lunged for him, snarling like a rabid animal, its empty black eyes seizing upon him. With a solid blow and crunch of bone Shadow smashed it to the floor, where it lay still. Another ran for him, and with a quick movement he snapped its neck, the body losing none of its momentum as it collapsed into the snow. From every direction bolts of coloured lightning surged past him, forcing him to duck and weave.

He couldn't use his Chaos powers. Somehow the simulacra around him were draining his energy, using it against him, making his veins feel empty and his body starved. Shadow had to rely on his own impressive strength to survive. Grabbing onto a small wolf creature trying to jump on his back, he hurled it into a tree. Showers of snow and splinters accompanied the body in its heavy descent. No sooner had he readied himself for the next attack, when the previous two creatures staggered to their feet, their bones realigning themselves with a sick cracking sound.

"Damn you!" said Shadow, panting heavily, "why won't you stay dead?"

He could feel himself holding back. Even with strikes strong enough to kill a man outright, he still pulled his punches. Frustration gnawed at him; he could feel himself growing soft. When Sonic had chided him not to hurt the townspeople, he had felt offended. Offended that anyone could suggest it. But it was a fair concern; he was bred to kill, and didn't hesitate when it was called for, except now he found the idea distasteful.

Sonic. It was all that annoying blue idiot's fault, with his constant whining about the morality of things. Except that blue idiot loved him, and he was glad to be loved by him, his charge. He felt compelled to do anything to keep him safe, even letting his own guard down and holding himself back.

And now they had become separated, with Sonic perhaps facing the same fate as him, he became even more desperate to win, to save him. With his heart thundering in his chest he fought, surrounded on all sides against a foe that would not fall. More and more of the robotic zombies swarmed around him, disguised as old women, young men and little kids, except for those awful eyes. He thrashed against them, breaking arms, crushing faces and gouging eyes, but still they kept coming.

He faltered as they dogpiled into him, a mass of clawing arms and snarling faces, and he felt the last of his strength leaving him. As they tried to drag him to the ground, a gasp of strangled air escaped his lungs.

"Sonic!" he gasped, a single tear rolling down his cheek, "I'm sorry, I wasn't strong enough..."

Darkness overtook his vision, but in his ears a deep low rumble grew in intensity, like the sound of an oncoming train. Turning his head, a flash of brilliant blue light from deeper in the woods parted the darkness. As the wall of cobalt light rushed towards him with a deafening howl and torrent of snow, the robots unhanded him and began to flee.

Shadow stood firm, placing his hand in front of his face to shield his eyes from the blinding tsunami of light. As the burning heat of the wave engulfed him, he saw only blue, and then nothing but blackness.

~o~

Tails opened his eyes slowly to a dim cool light. Cold hard metal brushed against his cheek, and he looked along a workbench cluttered with scientific instruments. Lifting his head he saw he was still in the GUN laboratory, although a deathly quiet permeated the air.

That's funny, thought Tails, Knuckles and I were in the canteen when I nodded off. How did I get back here?

They had spent all day at the GUN headquarters, waiting on reports of excess Chaos activity, hoping for some clue about Sonic's whereabouts, or at least the location of the mysterious Chaos Controller that had attacked the building. The former would have been preferable to Tails. Eventually they ended up playing cards in the canteen, where Commander Baxter had given them sporadic updates on their progress, or lack thereof.