[Capn_Chryssalid]

After a hiatus of several years, I’m revisiting the Sonic fandom to update my old fic, “The Cycle of Ages.” In particular, I’ve decided to basically redo the first book, “A Chosen One” (approx 200 to 250k words). More than half of it is complete by this point, and beginning mostly with Chapter 3, the vast majority is all new material. This is my attempt not only to update the story so it encompasses more of the Sonic continuity (adding newer characters like Silver, Blaze and the Babylon Rogues) but also so to make it more accessible and more in line with the sequel, “New World Order.”

I'll be posting updates on a few places to see if I can generate any interesting comments or criticism. I consider myself a rather flexible author; with both COA:NWO and "The Road to Cydonia" I took time to specially address the interests of readers when I felt it fit into the plot.

links:
FFN: http://www.fanfictio...~capnchryssalid
Devart: http://capnchryssalid.deviantart.com/
My archive: http://www.wagnergrp.com/JBW_Website/

--Note about OCs--
Note that the two nominal OCs in the story (Tempest and Nail) remain, mostly to screw with Tails' perception of the world and outline the juxtaposition of spiritual vs practical insight into the use of power (Nail will continue to propose that power should always be restrained, while Tempest will advocate the strong should protect/control the… less strong). Rush will still only have one scene; I kept him mostly because he's still supposed to play a role in the third book after COA:NWO.

--About the continuity—
I use a somewhat unique hybrid continuity for “The Cycle of Ages,” in that I try and mix the games (SEGA canon), the comics (Archie canon), and the anime (Sonic X), in that order of precedence. Chronologically, one can see things as happening in roughly this order:
Sonic 1
Tails Adventure
Sonic 2
Sonic 3
Sonic & Knuckles
The majority of the relevant comics
Some of Sonic X
Sonic Adventure 1

The events of COA encompass/overwrite the following game events: SA2 (thus Shadow is an antagonist), Sonic Riders 2, Sonic 06/NextGen.

----

I currently have several Chapter Title pictures completed (out of 8 chapters currently online). I'll include those below:

Chapter 1

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 6

Chapter 8



--

Here's a snippet from the latest chapter upload (Chapter 6).

--
Sonic felt the shuttlecraft decelerate. Inside the cabin, twelve armed and armored mobian marines swayed back and forth in their seats. Some held onto the straps that kept them safely secured to the walls. Others checked their weapons and their gear. Opposite Sonic, a very large rectangular box the size of a refrigerator threatened to pop out of its restraints and crush someone. For his part, Sonic eschewed straps and belts, enjoying the acceleration and deceleration, using his sneakers grip on the floor to keep from flying across the cabin and into someone.

“Sonic, are you listening?” Nicole’s voice interrupted, drawing his eyes back to the small data pad he had been given before the trip down. Tails had insisted that it was a surprise ‘he would absolutely love.’ Unfortunately, the tech-happy kitsune had neglected to explain why his hedgehog hero would have to pore over a boring tech manual. As it was, Sonic had only a vague idea of what his little buddy had built for him this time around.

“Sorry!” he apologized quickly, only half meaning it. Staring at the electronic pad, he watched schematics fly by, along with instructions and safety warnings. It was all totally boring, at least in his opinion. Nicole didn’t actually seem to be IN the datapad, but Tails had apparently programmed her voice in, to try and keep his attention focused. It had worked, too. At least for a few minutes.

There were no windows inside the marine shuttle, but Sonic felt it when they neared the ground, as the ship stabilized and turned upwards. The marines felt it too, un-strapping their restraints. They were all heavily armed, and had the same sort of professional, determined air that GUN soldiers had, back at Station Square. Sonic could see the appeal in having fighters like that helping the cause, but it lacked the coolness of the old days. Of course, all the real progress in the old days had been made by him leaving everyone else in the dust, so the new ways being less cool couldn’t really be helped.

“Alright, boys! Hit ‘em hard and fast! We are authorized to take prisoners, so if it doesn’t have a weapon in its hands, don’t cut it down.” The leader of the platoon or squad or whatever (Sonic had no idea) looked over his men. He was an ursine, brown in color, and looked old enough to be a vet from the Great War. He said some more stuff, earning a chant from the grunts, and then the rear doors opened. The marines stormed out, and Sonic followed at a leisurely pace, tossing the data pad back onto his seat.

Shielding his eyes against the sun’s glare, Sonic got a good look around, while the marines secured the area. Miles’ little Battlecruiser had done a number on the area. There were craters wide enough to swallow a good sized house, and at least one of the enemy’s shuttlecraft had fallen into a crater trying to take off. The drones had disabled it, and one even hovered proudly nearby, watching over the crashed hulk. A few bad guys (Tails had called them “battlebirds,” and Sonic hadn’t run into them before himself) put up a half decent fight, firing at them from behind cover or from a crashed vehicle.

The marines had things outside under control, so, tapping his foot twice, Sonic took off in a blur of motion. Racing past two surrendering battlebirds, he headed down to the labs and bunker below. Tails had asked him to stick with the force on the ground, in case it ran into trouble, but he hadn’t explained just what it was that was down here. There was the Chaos Emerald, yes, but he got the feeling there was more, too.

Running down the underground causeway, passing by a few abandoned wooden crates (and one broken one), Sonic quickly reached the bottom. There was a large area there, with lifts going up to the left and right. A central security station had been mostly destroyed, and so had a handful of defense robots. A handful of battlebirds lay on the ground, dead, along with some of the security guards. Doors to the north and south had colored labels indicating they were different research labs.

Up ahead of him, to the west, large blast doors had been forced open. Inside was some kind of vault. Getting closer, Sonic saw bright lights: they were arranged along the ceiling, and they lit up a massive chamber. Inside was an eclectic mix of high tech looking equipment and more wooden crates. Other crates looked plastic, and many were piled so high Sonic couldn’t even hope to jump over them. Walking deeper inside, he saw a treasure trove of items he did recognize.

“Rings?” he asked, gazing out over a just slightly sunken area with rows of Ring Boxes, neatly stacked and arranged. Many were on wooden platforms, to make it easier to move them with a nearby forklift. Box after box after box was in storage here, and Sonic knew from experience that each one had the equivalent of ten Power Rings in it. There had to be hundreds of rings taken altogether… maybe even a thousand! No: maybe even two thousand!

And that was just one area of the immense vault.

To Sonic’s right, he saw another designated area, enclosed in red and yellow warning stripes. The design on the boxes here was one he knew well. There were rows of fire-type box shields. He’d used them many times before. When he’d broken those boxes open before, they’d encased him in a sort of flaming shield that made him basically immune to fire based attacks. Like with the ring boxes, these were neatly stacked in rows, and piled one on top of another, two high.

The fire shields weren’t alone, either. Past them, in an area with blue and yellow stripes, were rows of water-type bubble shields. And behind that, he saw rows of electric shields, behind yellow and white stripes. To his left, an even more high security area held yet another type of box. There was a clean square cut into the transparent barrier there, and Sonic could see force field emitters that had been shut down nearby, too. Getting closer, he confirmed his suspicions.

Invincibility boxes.

Someone had gone through a lot of trouble to horde so many. In all his years adventuring, Sonic had never seen such a collection. He’d never even imagined it! Near the back of the vault, great crystal pylons held a constantly streaming flow of regular Power Rings. Near that, in its own high security area (also broken into, with considerably more force), was where the Chaos Emerald had been kept. Scientific instruments that had been nearby were ruined or in disarray.

It struck Sonic, for just a moment, as one of the Eggman’s labs. But it wasn’t. The style here, the architecture, wasn’t Eggman-like. It was utilitarian, but with lots of flash and moving parts, and yellow color schemes dominated. Even around the Seal of the King, hung prominently from the scaffolding above, stark golden lines ran from one side to another, above and below. Then Sonic turned around, to face the entrance, and saw a new banner.

A banner with two tails, curled together into a taijitu yin-yang.

“Tails?” Sonic wondered aloud. Had he done all this?

The more the hedgehog thought about it, the more sense it made. None of the other Freedom Fighters had much experience with the shields and rings and power boxes. Rotor had studied ring energy for a while, but Sonic knew he couldn’t actually use the stuff. Tails had quickly become the leading authority in the movement regarding chaos energy in all its forms and applications. He could use the boxes, too. Who else would be running all these experiments on all the different sorts of chaos energy? Only the Eggman or maybe someone from the Dark Legion back on Angel Island.

But what was Tails doing here with all this?

“Sonic!” the fox in question contacted him personally, using the earpiece Sonic had put on before his trip to the surface. “Jet and the Rogues are trying to make a break for it. Use the EGAP. I’ll catch up with you in the air.”

“Tails, wait!” But he was already gone. Not that Sonic had a microphone, anyway. And when had he ever yelled ‘Tails, wait!’ before? Sonic smirked to himself, and decided to put off any questions till later. Breaking into a run, he was soon out of the vault, and heading up the causeway. By the time he got back to the surface, the marines had landed in force. Ranks of battlebird prisoners were held up near one of the walls in the hangar.

Sonic passed them by and headed for the shuttle he had taken down. Inside, he unlocked the large metal crate he had sat opposite from, and dragged it outside. It was fairly heavy, and would’ve given most mobians trouble, but Sonic’s strength was artificially augmented by his chaos powers. Even without trying, he could manage loads well above what he should have normally been capable of. Putting the crate on the ground, and making sure the face was up, he undid the last two locks.

The sound of distant thunder distracted him for a second, and Sonic looked up to see an air war stretching for a hundred square miles all above him. The Blue Typhoon and another ship seemed to be firing at several targets far away while contrails of missiles mixed with the streaking exhaust of drones and fighter craft. Something blossomed into a large explosion, hit by a beam from the Typhoon. Sonic could see the flashes of light, and the brief lances of energy beams, as anything that got too close to the ship risked blue tinted annihilation. Autocannons and tracer fire erupted from the ship’s flank, as something tried to hug the hull to avoid the beams.

Sonic put that aside, and opened his early birthday present. Tails was always building him some crazy thing or another, and as Sonic opened the case, one of his eyebrows raised in impressed surprise. Inside was what looked like an extreme GEAR. Except this GEAR was encased in what looked like jets and an armored frame. On the side, in small writing, Sonic saw what EGAP meant.

Extreme GEAR: Assault Pack (mk.I)

It was heavy, but not unlike a normal board. He hoped it handled line one, too, especially since he couldn’t remember word one from that boring instruction datapad he had been given. Powering the GEAR up (a large, well lit power button lay under a transparent pane of glass), Sonic heard it hum, and then roar. That was a new sound for a GEAR! Checking the intakes, he could feel air being sucked in.

“Let’s do this!” He started running, and held out the board in front of him. Getting up a good starting speed, Sonic crested one of the craters in the runway and jumped. Tucking his feet in, and placing his shoes into the indentations in the board, he felt them lock in place. Additional straps wrapped around his shoes, along with two raised plates. Straightening out, Sonic pressed down with his back heel, and the GEAR activated fully.

“WOOOOAAAAAAHHH!”

Even for him, that was some killer acceleration. Already hundreds of feet in the air, Sonic could see a plume of green and red fire erupting out of the back of the Assault Pack part of the GEAR. Additionally, tiny canards or wings popped out of the sides, helping to stabilize the board in flight.

“Chaos User identified!” a female voice chirped in his ear. “Activating weapons systems. Please select shield.”

“Shield?” Sonic asked, amazed anything could hear him through the roar of the air all around him. He used his left foot to slow down, and corrected the board as it started to fly to the right. Maintaining stability with the Assault Pack on the GEAR was a lot harder than he was used to, but then no normal GEAR could operate so far from a surface, either. It needed something to ‘push’ off of.

“Please select shield,” the voice reiterated. It was obviously just a simple program. Sonic remembered all the shield boxes he had seen down in the vault, just a minute or so ago.

“Fire?” he asked. “Flame shield?”

“Flame shield. Activated.”

A wave of red washed over him, and Sonic saw the glow all around the board. If this was like the shields he had used before, then it could be used offensively. The flame shields in the past had blocked things like plasma blasts (though not lasers). Similarly, bubble shields had blocked solid projectiles. He wondered if the Assault Pack had an invincibility shield, too.

“Woah!” Sonic had to keep from losing control again. It definitely wasn’t safe losing your focus on keeping the GEAR balanced. Grinning wildly, the hedgehog turned towards the raging melee in the sky. Flames roaring out the back of his new toy, giving him the likeness and power of a small comet, Sonic raced into the fray.

-----

Nicole sat in the Captain’s chair, smiling quite happily.

She could actually move all about the bridge if she wished, even into the Captain’s Ready Room, but while Miles had been around she’d dutifully remained on her pedestal. He’d given a few remaining orders, putting the fleet in an excellent position to counterattack. He’d probably have enjoyed staying and crushing the Battlebird Fleet, but just like his childhood hero, he took his personal vendettas and grudges very seriously. It was kind of cute, actually.

But organics did get so riled up about the littlest things!

Sally was the same way. Why she insisted in getting so involved with the boys around her, Nicole couldn’t quite fathom. The AI knew her ‘owner’ loved Sonic, so that explained why she had to hang onto his every word and action so much, but Nicole doubted she loved Miles like that, too. Even though Sally had said ‘I love you’ to him in the ready room before. Nicole had listened in on that whole conversation, but she still didn’t quite understand it all. Many of her AI emotions were framed by the time she’d spent in Sally’s body, but there was still so much left to learn and experience. Perhaps when her control subroutines expired, she’d finally become as complete as any organic.

For the moment, she was both Nicole and the Blue Typhoon. She could feel the engineers working on her power core. She could feel the roar of engines, like the pulsing of her heart. Her weapons flexed like claws, eager to rend and savage the mayflies and gnats that swarmed around her. Her sensors were her eyes, seeing across the electromagnetic spectrum. Her hangar was like her womb, abuzz with life. She felt like the center of the world; she felt invincible!

‘Even Nicole Prime can’t feel what I do now!’ Nicole thought, managing thousands of ship and fleet related processes as naturally and seamlessly as an organic would move their eyes, legs, or facial muscles. ‘She’ll be so jealous; I can’t wait for our next uplink!’

“Captain!” the crew had been trained to treat her as the ship’s Captain, when Miles was not in attendance. Which, frankly, was most of the time.

“I know.” Nicole could guess what the tactical officer was about to say. “Ready my primary weapons systems and warm up the forward heavy plasma cannons. We’re heading right in… to cut them to pieces…”

Nicole felt her claws extend, power flowing into them.

It felt good.

-----

Miles stood next to his Tornado Two Custom. It was a beauty of a machine, finer even than his Cyclone War Machines. Those were just mass production models, after all. The TT-Custom was sleek, with a generous bubble cockpit, light but extremely strong Morganite-aluminium armor, massive muscular engines, and swept back variable geometry wings. Not that they could simply sweep back and forth – the wings could dynamically alter their shape in flight for maximum speed or maneuverability. It bristled with internal and external weapons systems, both conventional… and unconventional.

‘God and the Source, if only she was a woman!’ Miles patted the wing of the plane proudly, and seductively ran his hand along the cool, perfect metal armor around one of the engines. ‘I need a sexy picture on this plane. And I should give her a name. A real sexy name… you’d like that, wouldn’t you, baby?’

“Ahem!”

“Do you have to ruin the moment…?” Miles turned, and saw Sally standing in a flight suit, her hands on her hips. She filled out the jump suit well enough, and she even looked the part of a pilot. Except she wasn’t.

“What are you doing?” he asked, eyes half lidded. “No means no.”

Sally pouted. She actually pouted.

“You don’t even like to fly,” Miles said, not giving in. “This is going to be a lot more intense than cruising over to some island. There’s going to be dogfights.”

“I’m sure I’ll be fine!” Sally assured him, holding up her helmet.

“I’m sure you’ll pass out,” he grumbled, but they’d already had this argument on the way down. She didn’t like the idea of him flying off to settle a score with some Battlebird pilot. Not that he thought she had much say in the matter, but apparently since she couldn’t stop him (she didn’t even try) she felt the need to go through the ordeal with him. It was almost the sort of annoying thing Amy would try, except Amy would (and did) muscle her way into his plane when she wanted to go somewhere. At least Sally had the decency to ask and talk it through.

Not that it mattered.

Females, he deduced, were used to getting what they wanted.

“Fine, I hope you enjoy the ride. Please keep the helmet on in case you throw up.” He climbed into the pilot’s seat, and she followed right behind him, climbing up and into the co-pilot’s seat behind him. If he’d just not installed that seat, then he wouldn’t be having this problem. So really, this whole thing was Sonic’s fault!

“Hey, I found a crumb! Is this from a cookie?”

“It’s your cookie!” he yelled over his shoulder. “You ate gram crackers back there like 4 months ago!”

“I did?” Sally tilted her head as she thought it over, trying to remember. “Oh, that’s right! Sorry.”

Opening his mouth, Miles paused a few seconds… gave up and went back to the controls in front of him. Running a quick flight check, he made sure everything was in order. His Tornado Two Custom was a special plane, with very special needs. She needed a precise mixture of fuel, and a pilot had to handle her with gentle love and care. She was finicky, but for those who could tame her, her performance and power were unmatched. And like all his most powerful weapons, she could also use a Chaos Emerald to become even more powerful!

But as he had no Emeralds to spare, she would have to make due with her own beautiful and supremely awesome self. He quickly caught himself before he started nuzzling the controls. Even with his Blue Typhoon and all his other creations, he still considered his Tornado to be his most favorite (except maybe Fiona, but she wasn’t entirely his creation). Checking all the weapons systems, the electronics, and the power, Miles smirked to himself. Everything was ready.

“Alright!” he yelled over his shoulder. “Hold on! We’re taking off!”

Miles activated the comm. “Clearance, Command?”

“Clearance granted, Tornado Two,” a voice replied. Lights lit up ahead of them, leading out the hangar and into open air. “Good hunting.”

“Thanks, Command,” he replied, switching off the comm. “Let’s put the fear of God into them, Tornado Two!”

The plane’s content rumble became a dragon’s roar, and she shot out of the hangar like a bullet. Miles felt the tingle in his blood as the freedom and thrill of flying mixed with his kitsune love of the hunt. He barely heard Sally screaming into her helmet as he pulled a tight turn, ran down the length of the Blue Typhoon in an instant, and shot off into the air battle ahead of them.

In fact, he quickly forgot Sally was even there. His helmet HUD lit up with targets, supplied to the onboard computer by Nicole and the Blue Typhoon battlefield AWACs. Outside the cockpit, the Tornado’s wings morphed, becoming better suited to high maneuverability dogfighting. Canards and wing flaps moved, paired with vectored thrust, throwing the plane into a spin and off to the left. Targets lit up the space all around him, and Miles highlighted them with his eyes and the targeting trigger under his thumb.

Setting the targets and switching to free fire, Miles depressed the trigger.

Outside the plane, a missile pod opened, releasing half a dozen crimson streaks. This was the Tornado’s (and the Cyclone’s) GAM-52 “Panic” General Air Munition Mini-missile System. Capable of engaging both high speed air and ground targets, the six independent missiles were programmed and guided to their targets by the onboard computer. Unlike other similar systems, his GAM-52 system could also be set to ‘friend or foe’ independent computer targeting.

The mini-missiles themselves had three-dimensional thrust vectoring engines, four mated aerodynamic control surfaces (each with an independent aileron), and four rear spoilers (or fins) for high maneuverability in excess of 18g’s. Their only real weakness was their size. They were only mini-missiles, so their range was not great, and their warheads were relatively small: each one had only a four kilogram high explosive warhead.

They made wonderful little blossoms of fire that filled the sky with burning debris. Drone craft hit evasive the moment you ghosted them with active radar, and most pilots to survive this long on the battlefields of Mobius were either really good veterans, or really crappy raw recruits. Miles’ Cyclone pilots were a mix of both, but there were a determined bunch and piloting extremely good weapons of war. He was sure they’d be able to handle the Battlebirds, but that didn’t mean he wanted to lose out on the fun. Besides, the sooner the fighters were gone, the sooner they could strike at the enemy’s heart: their capships.

Engines roaring, Miles maneuvered down and past the smoking barely-battleworthy wreck that was the HMS Prince Emerson. She had been savaged so badly that it was likely the crew would have to scuttle her, whether the battle was won or lost. At least the crew would survive. Scanning the sky for a list of priority targets, Miles identified the main bomber formation. It had split into three pairs of wingmen.

A warning indicator flashed and wailed, indicating he was being locked on. Jinking and burning, Miles tried to break the lock, but found himself being ghosted by two separate enemies. It was just like before, he remembered. The Battlebirds used fighters to designate for drones, rather than using capships. They then engaged as a pair. Miles had no wingman. Pulling up, he inverted his starboard thrust, sending his plane into a twisting spiral. He then pulled downward into a dive, heading towards his first target. This extremely sharp turn, possible because of the Tornado’s thrust vectoring and dynamic wings, couldn’t be matched by any Battlebird craft.

Diving into and locking onto the original enemy plane, Miles fired a short burst from the Tornado’s four-barreled 30 millimeter cannon. The plane had only a limited ammunition supply, so the gun fired well under its maximum rpm. In just a second, however, what few high explosive incendiary rounds it did fire mauled the Battlebird fighter, tearing a wing off and gutting the center of the aircraft. It exploded in a fireball as Miles raced past the wreckage, heading towards the ground.

His radar warning receiver became a sudden solid tone as the remaining drone craft, still locked onto him, unleashed a wave of its own mini-missiles from compartments in its bulbous sides. Turning sharply again and dropping chaff, the Tornado twisted and weaved, engines burning hot as the missiles proximity detonated all around it. High speed shrapnel bounced off the plane’s armor from the indirect hits, and it turned around, passing the drone fighter. The unmanned craft opened fire, heaving automatic cannon spewing killer lead, but the Tornado rolled and fired a single quick burst. Pulling up and away, the drone fell behind, burning and trailing fumes.

“Oogh.” A disgruntled gurgle from the back seat.

“Sounds like you found the helmet comm.,” Miles noted. “You still alive back there?”

“Barely,” Sally sounded ok, if a little disoriented. “Where on Mobius did you learn to fly like that?”

“Practice.”

“It’s… amazing, actually.”

He blinked, a little thrown off by the praise. He couldn’t remember anyone ever complimenting his piloting like that. Sonic just sort of accepted it as the natural way of things, and none of his other friends really seemed to find it either unusual or amazing. At least none of them said so.

“Thanks. Thanks, Sally,” he said, smiling now, and not just from the rush. “No one’s ever told me that before.”

“I’m just sorry I… well, that I never even noticed until now.”

‘You never much liked me putting weapons on my planes,’ he remembered, and said, “I never really talked about it, so we’re even. Hold on!”

The Tornado came about and headed back into the furball.

--
(Of course, the whole thing is up online elsewhere. Each chapter is divided into 3 parts, each roughly 20 pages)

Any comments, criticism or ideas are always welcome!


-----

This post has been edited by Capn_Chryssalid: 05 October 2008 - 06:32 PM

[Capn_Chryssalid]

Man, I forgot all about updating the thread on this forum here. My bad on that.

Chapter 8 "Strange Bedfellows" was just uploaded yesterday, and I'll have part 2 and 3 of it up over this weekend. Also did a little Devart update over the last week, including Cast of Characters quick-guides, Chapter Title pictures and more.



Here's an example of one of the three Cast of Characters quick guides:







Along with the Chapter 8 Title Pic and the Chapter 9 teaser

Chapter 8 Title Picture

Shadow Hunter


Lastly, here's a snippet of Chapter 8, Part 1...

--

Low Orbit; 3219 MC

Eighteen years before the present, and eight hundred kilometers above the surface of Mobius’ isolated continent of Overland, a steadily growing hive of activity hung in the sky. This was the orbital half of the mega-construct known simply as “Space City,” or “The ARK.” Here, high above the blue and green world below, swarms of machines spread out from the City constructing a ring that nearly disappeared into the black abyss of space. In time, it would become a single inter-connected structure: a great ring circling the entire planet.

Occasional specks rose up from the atmosphere; these were the lifelines between the space station above and the great tower below. In actuality, each “speck” was large enough to accommodate tons of cargo. The elevators ran along streams of particles, part of a looped system running between low orbit and ground control. That same system kept the Space Colony in a stable non-geosynchronous orbit while the great ring slowly continued construction. The ARK itself was the nexus, the critical hub of activity for mobian humanity and its off-world investments and colonies.

What occurred there would also prove to be the bane of mankind.

The ARK Orbital Research Compound - Suite 54-D8

In a sealed room, harsh light flickered across a man’s face, highlighting the rough stubble on his chin and cheeks. Metal-rimmed glasses hid his eyes, reflecting the greenish hue from the adjacent room. The man peered into that room, empty save a single subject, with expressionless features. His companion sitting next to him winced; his face scrunching up into a look of distaste.

“I tell ya, I can’t take much more of this assignment, Jim.” The man said with a grunt, as he massaged his temples with hairless, human fingers. “It gets to ya, ya know?”

“Hmm?” The other man took his eyes off the other room, visible through a see-through window, to acknowledge his co-worker. “Sam… Did you just say something?”

The overlander sans glasses sighed.

“I said ‘it gets to you.’ The noise,” he clarified, “The sound these things make.”

“Oh.” Jim shrugged. He went back to keeping an eye on the other room. “I suppose.”

Sam looked over at a nearby instrument panel. “It just… doesn’t sound human.”

“What?” Jim asked. “You think it should sound human?”

“No…” The other man admitted, running his thumb over the GUN patch on his left shoulder. “Of course not. But still, I mean, we’ve all heard it talk. It sounds human when it talks. But when you get the thing in the chamber… when it’s in there… it doesn’t sound like any man… mobians… I guess mobians don’t scream properly… they don’t have the voice boxes for it. They yowl… like some animal caught in a trap… and I’m just getting’ tired of hearing it.”

Jim frowned and nodded in understanding.

“How long have you been on this detail?” he asked.

“Since it started.” Sam closed his eyes, and tried to shut out the howls coming from the room next to them. “Since the old man decided to start ‘conditioning’ the little beast to Chaos Waveforms. I honestly don’t know what he expects to happen in there…”

The man with glasses looked into the other room where a black creature was huddled in a corner, yowling and thrashing as if to escape the greenish radiation flooding into the chamber. Every so often it would start to go into a seizure, and end up smashing its head into the wall, foaming at the mouth like a rabid beast. The two humans were there to monitor its life signs, and to step in if it passed out or had another concussion. Sometimes the creature, when led into the Chaos Chamber, would stand defiantly in the middle of the room… but it always ended up in the same place, the same corner.

Screaming.

“A miracle…” Jim whispered. “We’re looking for a miracle.”

“Huh?” Sam asked, and sighed again. “Anyway: this one is just like all the other ‘Shadows.’ It’ll end up chewing its wrists off, and we’ll be left plugging another black rat through the same routine… again. Though that one’ll probably be the last, at least. It isn’t like they’re going to give us the funding for an army of them like the old man wants.”

Jim looked at his comrade again. “What’ve you heard?”

Sam looked away at the panel again. “Just that the General came by a few days ago. He’s going to axe the Shadow Program in favor of the Eclipse Project. As if no one saw that coming after that ‘bio-lizard’ fiasco and all these little goblins we’ve gone through.”

The other scientist rolled his head from side to side, evoking a few cracks and pops. “I suppose not…”

Project Shadow was proving to be something of a boondoggle. At least the Bio-Lizard had been useful as a prototype and experimental test platform. The Shadows were just useless. None of them seemed to have anything near the Chaos Sensitivity they were supposed to have. At least they still had the mass produced “Artificial Chaos” creatures, but that one success story wouldn’t prop up the rest of the bio-engineering department’s failures. They were already the laughing stock of the Research Station.

‘Gerald’s Billion Dollar Lab Rats,’ they were called.

“Well… I guess we don’t have time to dick around with pet projects at this point. Not with the President calling up a draft for the first time in thirty years. At least we’re prepared for this war… Not like last time. I ever tell you that my father fought in the last war…?”

“Everyone’s father fought in the last war,” Jim countered.

“Yeah…” The other scientist looking down at the GUN insignia he wore. “And here I am stuck in space. Still, the girls think it’s neat.”

“The twins, right?” Jim smiled; glad the conversation was moving to more mundane topics. The mobian in the room adjacent had even stopped screaming… he was probably out of breath again. His vital signs were still passable.

“How old are they, now?”

“Eight.” Sam looked up at the ceiling. “Nothing they like more than watching the shuttles take off from The Gateway. Jennifer says she tells them I pass overhead every three days. Supposedly they go outside and wave.”

Jim chuckled softly. “Not exactly scientifically accurate.”

“They’re just little kids, I don’t think they… Holy…”

In mid-sentence, the researcher leapt out of his chair, and gawked open mouthed at the one-way window that showed the Chaos Chamber. Swiveling, his partner looked in the same direction and saw the same thing. In the room, still huddled in a little ball, the creature codenamed ‘Shadow-016’ began to glow, his black spines outlined by white and red.

Slowly, painfully, the mobian hedgehog began to right himself, first on his arms and legs, and then his knees. Eyes rolled into the back of his skull, Shadow leaned back and let out a soundless scream. His whole body began to convulse and shake as a thick foamy drool slid down his chin. White flashes came and went, in a seemingly random pattern, growing steadily in intensity.

“W… what’s happening…? Why did he change color?” Jim managed to say, and his eyes darted around the room for some elusive answer. “Is this Singularity? Should we do something? Should we shut the Chamber Down?”

The senior scientist slowly shook his head. “He’s… absorbing it… resonating with the artificial waveform and converting it into natural chaos energy…! After all this time… after all these trials… one of them finally worked…”

In the room, Shadow’s seizure-wracked body began to turn a pale white.

“Is this it? Is this the final evolution of Project Shadow?” He continued speaking, eyes set on the figure in the middle of the chamber, ignoring the warning lights that went off behind him. “A conduit for the Chaos Waveform? Or… is this another biolizard? Are we still one step short… one gene shy… of the Ultimate…”

Samuel Florentine never finished his sentence. In front of him the reinforced crystal cracked, and before he could draw breath, exploded outwards at lethal velocities. Shredded by the shrapnel, blinded by the light, he never saw the White Angel of Death he had helped to create. No one would see it again… for almost twenty years…

-----

Shadow stood, alone, atop one of Robotropolis’ great towers.

Absolute solitude was both his bane and his comfort. He felt nothing but contempt for those robots, robians, and other abominations that scurried about the city. He felt nothing but hate for the mobians he had been created to destroy; he felt nothing but resentment for the humans who made him, discarded him, and took the innocent light of his life. If life was truly suffering, as he recalled Maria saying some believed, then sentience was the greatest curse of them all.

What could be worse than suffering; only the knowledge that you suffer.

There was nothing to redeem this world that lay sprawled out before him. From the start, Shadow had vowed to destroy it. He didn’t mind waiting, days, weeks, months, even years if necessary. His cause was just, and his revenge undeniable. He rarely even thought much about it anymore, he just went about his business, but now… after months and months of work, it looked like things were reaching an impasse. He had placed all his hopes (so to speak) on rebuilding the Eclipse Cannon.

Shadow closed his eyes, remembering.

“Eclipse Cannon? What’s that, Doctor?”

“Shadow,” Gerald said his name with a kindness he otherwise knew only from Maria. Despite his tone of voice, though, the Professor was a busy and distant man. His kind words were rarely met by his actions and the demands he made of his creation. Still, Shadow admired him. He seemed so huge, so great, so larger-than-life…

“Eclipse is a weapon I have been forced to build. At its most powerful, it has the power to devastate a world. But it is only a device, Shadow, without values or intent. Remember this: true power is not measured in units of energy. It is in the decisions we made as sentient beings, and the lives we lead. I only hope that the mere threat of Eclipse will end this war before it begins…”

Shadow remembered seeing a sad look on his creator’s face.

“To see it used… would drive me to despair for all our futures.”

Silently, Shadow muttered an apology to his creator. He had intended to use Eclipse to wipe clean the world, from one pole to another; from horizon to horizon. Barring that, he had asked Snively to calculate the consequences of an overload, confirming that it would plunge Mobius into a nuclear winter lasting generations. It was a cruel response to a sinful world in need of punishment.

Except, now, the path ahead seemed unclear. Construction of Helios had stalled, and he hadn’t known about the initial energy consumption issue. It made sense, he supposed, but it made a once clear end seem muddled. Tentative peace feelers had been extended by Snively, at the Eggman’s request, and the initial response had been wary but positive. It was possible the Doctor’s plan would work, but what if it didn’t? What if Helios never got off the ground?

Shadow knew he couldn’t very well hunt down and destroy all the world’s life single handedly. No individual could. It had to be done in a single fell stroke, or at most, several. If Helios didn’t pan out, what could he do? To his vexation, Shadow realized he really didn’t have a backup plan. He had plans, but they all involved using the cannon; he just hadn’t seriously considered that Eclipse wouldn’t be built and activated.

The black hedgehog’s eyes opened, as he sensed a presence nearby.

Dark red eyes settled on a figure floating in midair, its back turned. The creature seemed outwardly mobian, in fact, it seemed to be a reflection of Shadow himself. The coloring was slightly grayer, with dull blue highlights instead of red, but the similarities were eerie. Gradually, the new arrival turned in space, revealing a blue-green eye looking over its shoulder.

“Disgusting, isn’t it?” Shadow’s shadow asked, turning back to the city below.

“And what’s that?” Shadow asked, making no outward move. In his mind, he instantly thought of Black Doom. Was this another Black Arms entity, like Doom’s Eye? It didn’t look or feel like it was, but it was possible that Doom had attempted to create a Shadow copy of his own, after the original had ultimately rejected their alliance all those months ago. Shadow had no interest in simply replacing one tortured form of life with another.

“This world,” the other black hedgehog answered, lazily. “So lost in sinful neglect. How many innocents have suffered so that the vile may prosper?”

Shadow’s expression remained unchanged. Inwardly, he was surprised.

“Who are you?”

“Someone like you, Shadow. My name is Mephiles…”

Shadow didn’t recognize the name.

“You don’t know me,” Mephiles answered the unspoken question. “But I know you. You and I walk a similar path. Long before you were created, I lost someone I loved. The light of my life. The world conspired to take her away… to cast her into darkness. Now, I wish only to join her there.”

In Darkness.

For Shadow, the words rang truer than any of Black Doom’s. How he had loved Maria, in all ways. She had been the light of his life - the guiding light; all he hoped and cared for. Even the Doctor, his creator, had done all he had in her name, in the hope of curing her disease. The world itself had conspired against her. Conception had left her sickly and frail, the circumstances of her birth pitted her family against the world’s mobians, and even her fellow humans had killed her to get at him. All her kindness had been rewarded with contempt and hate, not just by individuals, but by the callous cruelty of the world itself.

Maria, too, had been a light cast into darkness.

“What was her name?” Shadow suddenly felt the need to know.

“Iblis,” Mephiles replied, with a low sigh. “She was… wonderful. I loved her. And you loved Maria, didn’t you?”

Shadow screwed his eyes shut, haunted by her face. “Yes…”

“You want to punish this world,” Mephiles said, stating what Shadow had kept hidden deep in his heart for so long. “So do I…. I want only to punish it and be with her again.”

Shadow opened his eyes again, all traces of emotion banished.

“Who are you?” he asked, this time wanting more than a name.

“A shadow of the past,” the enigma answered, turning around completely to face Shadow. For the first time, it became obvious that this… entity… had no mouth. “For centuries I have slept, waiting for the right time. That time is now. Iblis will soon be released. I will join with her, and purge the evil from this world. I will do what the God or Gods of this world have failed to do.”

Shadow glared at him, asking without words: are you my enemy, or…?

“Shadow,” Mephiles said, holding out his hand. “Don’t you see? I understand you. Completely. Let us help each other.”

Black Doom had made similar promises; Shadow was plainly interested, but not totally convinced.

“How can you help me?”

“So long as I reunite with Iblis, I don’t care what happens,” Mephiles explained, “Your work with this human, down below. I know it to be a sham. But you need what he is building. You are… worried… that it will not be completed.”

‘Is he reading my mind?’ Shadow wondered. How else could this Mephiles know so much?

“I won’t deny it,” Shadow finally replied.

“Then let me assuage that concern…” Mephiles chuckled, a deep, dark sound that echoed in Shadow’s mind. “You will find that I know many things and that I make a powerful ally…”

-----