Chapter 1: Magic on Mobius (ReVamp!)

Chapter 1: Magic on Mobius (ReVamp!)

Location: GUN Headquarters

In a flash of green light, Shadow appeared in a wide metal corridor, startling the few people passing through it. He barely spared them a glance, though, as he began the short trek to the hangar, his focus entirely upon the upcoming mission. It was just a simple reconnaissance mission, something GUN typically did after Eggman had stayed off the grid for more than a few weeks. Fairly routine, really. They’d send out about a dozen agents, all specially trained to avoid detection, to poke around Eggman’s base for a bit and then report back their findings.

Rouge was always included on these missions, in spite of her bad habit of back stabbing for a shiny jewel. Shadow speculated that she may have been the reason behind the reconnaissance missions never turning up anything of great significance, even when there was massive trouble brewing. After that whole “Hex World” incident, GUN had finally figured out that they were doing something wrong and decided to change things up a little. So, for the first time ever, they decided to send out the Ultimate Lifeform.

It was about time too, Shadow reckoned as he strode into the hangar. The routine of waiting till the last possible minute to save Mobius from complete and total world annihilation/domination was getting old. It would be nice to be a step ahead of Eggman for once. Maybe have him begging for mercy as he choked the life out of him. A few tears shed. A couple of bones snapped. Maybe even a bit of malevolent cackling and the sweet, sweet taste of revenge. Yeah, that’d be nice…

Shadow ceased his daydreaming as he approached the vehicle they would be taking for the mission: a helicopter painted in a jungle camouflage. Or at least, he thought it was a helicopter. The rotary blades on top of it indicated it was, but the long, narrow hull was more like a small airplane than anything. A smaller, more compact helicopter would surely draw less attention to itself, Shadow mused. And it was probably much too big for the mission at hand, likely capable of carrying fifty men versus the dozen or so that would actually be aboard. Why would GUN ever choose this thing when there were hundreds of better options?

“Hey there, hot stuff~”

'Then again... Shadow mentally groaned as a sultry voice greeted him. 'When has GUN ever been known for its good judgement?

“Hey, Rouge,” Shadow replied, glancing over at the bat now approaching him. Her abnormal black ninja-esque attire prompted him to raise a perplexed eyebrow. “Interesting outfit you have there.”

“Isn’t it just?” she groaned, her ears twitching in irritation. “As much as I love going out on recon, this team has got to get a better uniform.”

“Funny. I wasn’t given any such uniform.”

“Sorry, hun, but that doesn’t make me feel any better. You hardly even wear clothes to begin with. My babies need more breathing rooooom~” she whined, hugging her chest to emphasize her point (er… “points”). She paused in her self-pity, realizing the implications of what Shadow had said. “Wait…you don’t mean to tell me you’re running with recon now, do you?”

Shadow nodded, crossing his arms with a small smirk. “The higher-ups finally pulled their heads out of their asses for long enough to realize that if they want a job done right, they need the Ultimate Lifeform to do it for them,” Shadow answered smugly. “What I’m wondering is why they didn’t call me in before now, given the continual failure of the past recon team to actually gather any intelligence,” he added, emphasizing the words ‘continual failure’ as he sent a sharp glare at Rouge.

“Don’t look at me, hun,” Rouge retorted, looking mildly offended at his accusation. “It’s not my fault these boys wouldn’t know sneaky if it smacked them upside the head. Honestly, it’s like they’re trying to get caught. Every recon mission so far has been a failure because of those bumbling idiots messing things up for me,” she elaborated, clearly miffed as she pointed annoyedly at the final late members of the recon team.

Shadow had to admit, for people who were supposedly specially trained, they didn’t seem to understand what the word ‘undercover’ meant. Not only was the group obnoxiously loud (he could hear their raucous laughter from across the hangar) but they were also packing way too much heat for a recon mission. Though Shadow hadn’t run recon before, he was fairly certain that massive flamethrowers and rocket launchers more than capable of taking down your average tank were the worst possible things to bring on a recon mission. Well. Unless you had the Faker with you. The blue bastard’s ego was bigger than any squadron of tanks could ever cause. And though the Faker was fortunately not included in the group, Shadow was having more than a few second thoughts about Rouge being the recon team’s source of trouble. The two watched as the group rowdily entered the aircraft.

“I can see now why the recon missions never succeed,” Shadow commented dully. Rouge merely groaned.

With that, the two boarded, taking seats towards the back of the roomy hull. The ramp raised as soon as they boarded, a great cacophony starting up outside the helicopter (again, Shadow had to wonder why GUN decided upon such an obtrusive aircraft for a recon mission). The helicopter made its short journey outside and took off, beginning the mercifully short flight to Eggman’s current base. With that, Shadow settled in and attempted to tune out the various bets taking place on who would destroy the most badniks. Hopefully the flight would be short enough that he wouldn’t feel the urge to make one of the more obnoxious agents shut up. Permanently.

-------------Meanwhile, in the not-so-distant past of another, more colorful world-------------

“Spiiike! Oh Spiiiiiiiiiiiike! Now where is that lazy dragon?”

“Yaaaaaaawn, ‘m right here, Twilight, wha’s the big fuss?”

“Do you remember how we received that incredibly important letter from Princess Celestia three days ago?”

“Uh-yaaaaaawn-huh.”

“The one that I was explicitly instructed to open precisely 32 minutes and 18 seconds from now?”

“Uh huh.”

“And do you remember how I gave it to you and told you to set it someplace I would easily find it so that I could open it at the exact right moment?”

“Uh huh.”

“Well, I seem to be having a bit of difficulty finding it, oddly enough. Do you think you could retrieve it from wherever you put it?”

“Uh huh.”

“…Spike, you do realize that getting something usually involves some variety of movement, right?”

“Uh huh.”

“…Spike?”

“Uh huh.”

“Spiiiiiiiiiike?”

“Uh huh.”

“SPIKE!”

“WHATYEAHI’MAWAKE.”

“The scroll?”

“Yaaaaawn. Yeah, sure, Twilight, just give me a second. Don’t see why we have to do this at 1 in the morning, though.”

Twilight chuckled as she watched her young assistant trudge sleepily away to retrieve the scroll. Poor Spike. She felt bad about keeping him up so late. He was only a baby dragon, after all. But Owlowiscious was currently taking an extended holiday for his family reunion (as he had conveyed through a rhythmic series of pecks and hoots), leaving Spike to stay up late for the past several nights to assist Twilight with her studies. Speaking of, she still had so much left to prepare! Twilight focused her attention back to the list she was holding, her giddy smile returning at the beautiful example of her organization.

“Okay, let’s see what I’ve got so far… saddle bag? Check. Various forms of easily portable food rations? Check. Copious amounts of parchment, quills, and ink? Triple check. The Element of Magic? Check. Blank books and journals? Double check. A wide variety of gems and jewels of varying shapes and sizes from Princess Celestia and Rarity? Check. A pouch of exactly 413 bits, also received from Princess Celestia? Check! Looks like all that’s left now is the scroll and the journal,” Twilight noted happily.

“You can check off the scroll, Twilight, I’ve got it right here,” Spike said, handing it to her.

“Thank you, my lovely assistant.” After checking off the scroll on her dismayingly brief list, she rolled it back up, placing it and the scroll atop the pile of items she had neatly placed within a chalk circle she had drawn in the middle of the library floor. The circle measured exactly two meters in diameter, surrounded by a variety of carefully drawn symbols. Six of the symbols Twilight was very familiar with, being the Elements of Harmony, but the others were quite foreign to her. Strange symbols, possibly a foreign language, along with other pictographs all at specific points within the circle. Taken as a whole, or even as a part, everything was incredibly strange. Not for the first time, Twilight wondered why Princess Celestia put her up to such an unusual and frustratingly vague task.

“I still don’t get why Princess Celestia is having you gather all of this stuff up at 1 in the morning. What are you even gonna do with it?” Spike asked, verbalizing her unspoken question.

“Honestly, Spike, I have no idea why I need all of this, but I suspect that whatever’s in the scroll will give us some idea on what its purpose is. I tried asking the Princess about it two days ago, but, as you know, she didn’t reply back…” Twilight trailed off worriedly. The Princess always responded to her letters within minutes of her sending them, regardless of how busy she was. The fact that she hadn’t responded to any of the nineteen letters Twilight had sent in the past few days was something that she had tried to keep from the forefront of her mind. There were at least 7,694 different explanations as to why Celestia hadn’t yet replied (not all of them entirely reasonable or plausible), but still, Twilight attempted to prevent herself from having a panic attack. After all, the Princess would’ve definitely let her know about any major happenings in the kingdom. Though that was little comfort for the purple worrywart. If something had happened-

“Well, whatever it is had better be important,” Spike snorted, drawing Twilight from her fretting. “I have a blanket upstairs that’s been calling my name for the past three hours.”

“I know, and I’m sorry to keep you up so late, Spike, but Celestia said in her letter that she needed you to be awake when I opened the scroll,” Twilight said regretfully. “Look at the bright side: you only have to stay awake for another 29 minutes and 37 seconds! Then you can sleep all you want.” Despite Twilight’s attempt to cheer him up, Spike continued to pout, grumbling under his breath about Owlowiscious. Though it was difficult to hear, Twilight was fairly sure she could could make out the words “stupid owl”, “never see me asking for vacation”, and “wring his little neck, roast him alive, and eat him for dinner.” (Though the last one was probably just her sleep-addled mind playing tricks on her. At least, she sincerely hoped that was the case.) As he stomped off to do whatever it is grumpy, overtired little dragons do, Twilight resumed her pondering on what the strange symbols in the circle might mean. And though there were a great many symbols that she most assuredly didn’t recognize, there were eight symbols new to her that she was almost positive she recognized. And these symbols gave her a great sense of foreboding about Princess Celestia’s task.

The Chaos Emeralds.