Chapter 2: Magic on Mobius (ReVamp!)

Chapter 2: Magic on Mobius(ReVamp!)

-------------Back on Mobius, in the not-so-distant future-------------

Finally, after what had felt like 50 years trapped with such unbelievably antagonizing imbeciles (but was actually closer to 20 minutes), the helicopter settled down just outside a thick jungle. The ramp lowered and the men all let out a great whoop of excitement before rushing towards the exit.

“Not so fast.”

The men stopped, turning to look at the small black hedgehog. His eyes opened in a sharp glare as he stood up. Suddenly, his 3 feet of height was a lot more intimidating. “Do you boys know why I was called in on this mission?” Shadow asked. Receiving no response, he continued, “I’m here because in the limited time I’ve observed you, you’ve proven yourselves to be a bunch of incompetent loudmouths who wouldn’t know sneaky if it hit you upside the head. I’m here because you’ve botched up every single reconnaissance mission you’ve ever been on. I’m here because I’m the one they call when things go wrong. And things have indeed gone wrong.

“All of you will remain here until Rouge and I return from the mission. That should keep you from screwing things up too badly.” Shadow stared down the lot of them, each of them bitterly avoiding his gaze before waving a hand towards Rouge. Grinning widely, she practically skipped her way over to Shadow, happy to finally get back to proper spy-work. As the two made to leave the aircraft, however, one of the men found the courage to speak up.

“Wait… you can’t order us around.” With the one brave soul speaking out, the others joined in, chorusing in indignant cries of “Yeah!” and “Who made died and made you king?” Rouge’s ears flattened as she murmured something along the lines of, “Not this again…” More confident with the support, the man continued, “That’s right, you don’t have any authority over us, hedgehog. Why should we listen to you?”

“Why should you listen to me?” Shadow repeated, turning back to face the group. “I’ll give you three good reasons. 1.“ A gloved fist slammed into the guy’s stomach, sending him backwards several feet and onto his backside. “2.” Grabbing his stupidly large gun, Shadow slammed it down over his knee and snapped it in half as if it were nothing more than a twig. “And 3.” A spear of pure red energy appeared in his hand as he stomped over to the agent. Grabbing the agent by the front of his vest, Shadow jerked him up so that he was within centimeters of his nose, looking down on the agent. His Chaos Spear was positioned menacingly underneath the soldier’s throat, hovering just below his quivering Adam’s apple. “Any more questions?” he spat. The terrified silence was enough of an answer for Shadow. Dropping the man to the floor, Shadow dissolved the Chaos Spear and turned on his heel, making his way out of the helicopter once more.

Blinking out of her daze at Shadow’s method of inspiring loyalty, Rouge quickly turned and followed, her glee now much more under control than it had been earlier. “That was quite a show you put on back there,” she said. “You don’t normally let yourself snap like that. What brought on such a manly display of dominance?”

“Between their idiocy, GUN’s incompetence, and all around obnoxious behavior, I was getting annoyed,” Shadow responded curtly.

Rouge nodded her head in understanding. “I hear ya, hun. I’ve been putting up with those knuckleheads for the past three years. They wouldn’t listen to a word I said no matter what I tried, and let me tell you, sugar, I tried just about everything. It’s about time they were put in there place. So, oh Ultimate One, what’s the plan now?” she asked, her tone both sassy and curious.

“We get in, find out what Eggman’s up to, get out. Simple as that,” he answered somewhat distractedly, busy rummaging around the quills on the back of his head.

“And how, exactly, do you plan on getting us in there?” Rouge demanded. Shadow at this point found what he was looking for and removed his hand from behind his head.  “Eggman’s radars definitely picked us up when we landed. His base is probably locked up tighter than Fort Knox by now.”

“CHAOS CONTROL!”

“…Right. I forgot that you could do that.” Rouge glanced around at the bright, wide metal corridor now surrounding them before she zeroed in on the object in Shadow’s hand. “And why are you carrying around the red Chaos Emerald in your quills?”

“It makes my life a hell of a lot easier. Now I can teleport anywhere and attack for as long as I want without draining myself,” he answered coolly, hiding the large gem back inside his quills much to Rouge’s dismay. Nobody but the hedgehog himself could pull anything out of them, as much as others had tried. She had dropped one of her lipstick tubes inside them once and tried, much to Shadow’s annoyance, to fish it out. The bat stuck both her arms in up to her shoulders and still couldn’t find it, much less the back of the hedgehog’s head. Yet when she withdrew and let Shadow attempt finding it, it took him all of two seconds before he was chucking the lipstick at her angrily, yelling about how his quills weren’t a toy and what was she doing touching up her makeup in the middle of an espionage mission and she needed to focus and control herself and blah de blah de blah. She had learned her lesson and now kept all of her valuable possessions (aka all of them) away from the alternate dimension that existed on the back of his head.

“...So, what do you think Ms. Master Spy?” Shadow asked, pulling Rouge back into reality.

“Sorry, hun, didn’t quite catch that. Can you start from where you opened your mouth?” Rouge chuckled guiltily. Shadow groaned.

“For a Master Spy, you sure are spacey…” he mumbled.

“All right, so I’m a bit rusty!” Rouge countered, embarrassed. “Team Dumbass hasn’t let me get this far inside on a mission in ages!”

“Whatever,” Shadow cut in, sensing a rant. “As I was saying, we should stick to using the air ducts to maneuver around. Eggman probably doesn’t have any robots searching through those, and we want to avoid detection. Whatever room Eggman’s in is bound to have an air vent leading into it. It’ll take a bit of searching, but we should be able to locate him and get some information without being detected.”

Rouge nodded thoughtfully as Shadow laid out his plan. “Sounds good to me. And I can cut down on time spent searching using these babies,” she said, her ears twitching. “Bat, remember?”

“Now I remember why you’re a spy. Ladies first,” Shadow smirked, gesturing in a gentlemanly way to the vent overhead. “Oh, you’re too kind,” Rouge replied, batting her eyelashes and smirking right back. With a few flaps of her wings, Rouge reached the overhead air vent and kicked it, creating a hole more than wide enough for the two small Mobians to fit through. She went through first and crawled to the side in the narrow shaft, Shadow following soon after. “So, where to?” he asked. Closing her eyes in concentration, Rouge swiveled her ears to and fro, listening to the echoing thuds of metal and other sounds indistinguishable to a human ear to attempt to pinpoint their target. After half a minute of searching, Rouge’s ears stood still and she opened her eyes, nodding her head forward. “Found him. Follow me.”

Rouge led the two through a complex series of turns that didn’t seem to move them in any particular direction, filled with ups and downs and the two constantly doubling back on themselves from duct to duct. They did, however, seem to be making some progress, as Shadow could now hear the familiar annoying voices of the two robots that always hung around Eggman over the various other dull rattlings of heavy machinery and robots the two had been hearing for some time now, though they sounded tinny and distant. As they moved closer, though, the voices faded from their indecipherable sequence of tones into much clearer, easier to understand words. Shadow hoped that the two would be talking about the good Doctor’s plans, but instead, from what he could make out, the two were arguing about some variety of television show they were both passionate about. Once it became clear that they wouldn’t be divulging any information at the ninth repetition of the phrase “card games on motorcycles,” Shadow let out a small annoyed huff. It seemed like there was an unwritten cosmic rule in place that all underlings were required to be incompetent, regardless of whether they worked for the government or megalomaniacs.

Shadow moved to draw Rouge’s attention to ask if she was sure they were going the right way when an obnoxious burst out loudly over the robotic duo, answering Shadow’s question. “Quit your gossiping about your stupid card games and get back to work, you ninnies!” Eggman, Shadow mentally growled. “The finishing touches on my ingenious master plan are almost complete, and I don’t need its enactment to be delayed by your laziness!” Eggman shouted. ‘Master plan?’ That doesn’t sound good. Something tells me that we got here just in time. We need to pick up the pace. I want to see what this master plan of his is with my own eyes. Tapping Rouge’s leg to get her attention in the cramped space, Shadow moved his hand in a shooing motion, attempting to silently convey that they needed to hurry. Rouge got the message and picked up the pace, though it was somewhat unnecessary as she stopped next to a vent not thirty seconds later and pointed at it, signifying that that was the room. Shadow nodded and leaned lightly against it, careful not to make any sound as he peered through the thin slats at the layout of the room.

The room looked normal enough for Eggman. Round, wide, and tall, quite a bit like the man himself. Large computer consoles with wide screens lined the wall in a circle broken only by a doorway. Eggman was sitting in large chair in front of one, typing away furiously. All in all, fairly average. The only abnormal part of the room that stuck out to the hedgehog was the four massive devices stationed at several points around the room. Three of them appeared to be exactly the same, their appearance similar to large, metal thumbtacks. The fourth device, the one the two robots were working on, appeared to be a large hoop, almost as tall as the ceiling. It looked vaguely familiar to the hedgehog, but he couldn’t quite place where he’d seen it before. Rouge tapped his shoulder and pointed at each of the machines, as if to say “Do you have any idea what those are?” Shadow shook his head and held up a finger, telling her to wait a moment. He looked back at Eggman, who seemed to have finished his business on the computer and was striding over towards Decoe and Bocoe. He held up five fingers, ticking off the seconds…5…4…3…2…1…

“Ahahahaha! Yeeeees, my plan is coming together beautifully!” Eggman cackled. Shadow smirked. Typical Eggman, monologging at the drop of a hat. “Finally, after years and years of foiled plots and botched plans, I have one that is absolutely foolproof! What better to go up against the fastest creature in the galaxy than the strongest one in all of existence? Nothing is what! That miserable little hedgehog won’t be able to do anything against the immeasurable might of the creature my Dimension Portal summons! And controlling it will be a breeze with the help of the Mind Manipulators and Chaos Emerald I have in place. But why stop at the hedgehog? I can have the whole world - no, the whole galaxy kneeling before me with the help of my new pet! I’m absolutely brilliant! Nothing could stop me now!”

Shadow was rooted to the spot. He had clearly heard every word Eggman had said. He was going to use… another living weapon? Shadow began to shake. He was simply going to kidnap a creature and remove its free will, using it for nothing but mindless destruction and rampage? Using a living, breathing, feeling lifeform as nothing more than another gun? His fist clenched. Had he not learned his lesson from his experience with the hedgehog himself? Had he not realized how truly atrocious, how evil it was to treat people like objects? His rage blinded him, numbing him to the feeling of the bat tugging on his shoulder, trying to get him to leave now that they had completed their mission. No, Shadow would not allow this to happen. He would not allow another to befall the same fate he and many before him had. He would make Eggman pay.

Shadow moved without thinking. He tore through the metal grating before him as if it were mere paper. Jumping to the floor he attacked the first thing he came across with an incredible punch. His fist ripped through the metal brain before him, electricity sparking around him as he removed his fist and it exploded in a small burst of flames and smoke. He turned his attention to his next two targets, the other metal brains, and with two Chaos Spears thrown tightly from both hands, they, too, combusted. The enraged hedgehog made his way towards the final device before finally feeling the bat insistently pulling at him, yelling at him to stop. His rage cooled slightly and he returned to reality, realizing that the portal was different. Eggman must have activated it while he was growing more furious, as the previously empty hoop now swirled blue and green.

Eggman was staring at him in open-mouthed horror, his mouth opening and closing rapidly with no words coming out. He seemed to snap out of whatever trance he was under, though, for he took the opportunity to scream, “You miserable little rat! Do you have any idea what you’ve just done!?”

Shadow nodded, a small, prideful smirk now on his face. “Prevented you from subjugating yet another lifeform and turning it into a living weapon? Yeah, I have a pretty good idea,” he said smugly, though there was a hint of menace in his voice and eyes.

“No, you ignorant fool! Can’t you see you’ve doomed us all!? My Mind Manipulators were the only things preventing whatever comes out of there from killing all of us on sight, and you’ve just obliterated them!” Eggman wailed.

“Then just turn the damned thing off! Better yet, I’ll do it for you,” Shadow said, a Chaos Spear appearing in his hand. “No, stop!” Eggman screamed, even more panicked. “Do you want to wipe out existence as you know it? The portal can’t be tampered with until it brings the strongest creature in the universe here, otherwise the fabric of time and space will be shredded into nonexistence!” he fretted. He pulled a control from seemingly out of thin air and pressed a button, a jetpack springing into existence on his back as a hole leading outside opened up in the ceiling. “I’m not sticking around to deal with it, this is your problem now hedgehog!” he shouted before taking off, the two robots following closely with their own jetpacks as the hole snapped shut behind them. Shadow cursed. He couldn’t teleport to them if he didn’t know where they were. His revenge would simply need to be put off till a later date. He had bigger issues right then. Issues that if he didn’t figure out quick enough, would put the whole world in danger.

“Self-destruct initiated. One minute until detonation. Have a nice day.” Faaaantastic.