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A Flame in the Dark: Chapter Eight

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Kingdom Valley, mid-afternoon

Hours and hours passed before Shadow and Rouge finally reached the valley where their rendezvous point was located. The trek through the wilder areas of Soleanna had been largely uneventful, but they had encountered more than one rogue group of Eggman’s mechs along the way, something that only roused Rouge’s suspicions further. Her fears were confirmed as the ruined towers of the valley came into view as they crested a hill, and more Eggman robots than she ever wanted to see in her life (save one, perhaps) were swarming the area as though trying to blockade the city beyond.

“Where did you say this rendezvous point was again, Rouge?” Shadow said, arms folded and glaring out at the scene.

Rouge’s mouth twisted wryly. “Far side of the valley, closer to the city.”

“So you’re telling me that if we’d just taken the direct route, as we planned to before, we would have been there hours ago.”

“Fun, isn’t it?”

Shadow blew out an irritated breath and readied himself to kick off. “We might as well clear them out while we make our way through.”

Rouge smirked to herself and spread her wings, taking to the air as Shadow began his descent down the hill toward their destination. “Sweetheart, you read my mind.”

The outskirts of Castle Town, afternoon

The sun was beginning to fall in the sky as Silver and Amy returned to Castle Town, and Silver’s frustration had truly risen at this point. Over half his time was up, and he only had one more full day to find his quarry - at this rate, he was set to fail spectacularly.

The thought was beginning to drive him mad.

“I can’t believe we haven’t found Sonic yet,” Amy said, idly swinging her feet around as they trudged along one of the outer streets. “I wonder where he went.” The city guards were keeping the outermost areas of the city clear to protect against any further attacks from Eggman’s mechs, but had let the both of them back in easily once they realized they were the ones who had beaten back the attack earlier.

Silver opened his mouth to reply to Amy, perhaps offer some kind of stock reassurance - and froze, his breath catching in his chest.

There.

There he was, exactly who he was looking for, the one he’d seen at the festival last night - blue fur, red sneakers. It was the other hedgehog, the Iblis Trigger. Emerging with a human girl - no, the princess of all people - into an empty plaza just a street away….

His heart began to pound furiously.

“Silver?” He started as he heard Amy’s voice at his side. She was staring at him curiously, head tilted to the side. “Hey, everything okay in there?”

Silver swallowed, cleared his throat. “Uh, yeah,” he said, mind racing. He couldn’t let her see what was about to happen. She was so kind, and for all his good intentions Silver was about to become a murderer. He’d accepted his role from the start, but Amy was just an innocent bystander. He had to distract her.

“Um, I was just thinking maybe we should split up,” he said, stepping around her, hoping to direct her view away from the plaza. “You know, maybe you head into the crowded areas or something, and I’ll, uh… look around here, or….”

“Oh!” Amy nodded. “Good idea! I’ll head back to the town center and get up somewhere high to look around. We’ll meet up back here?”

“Yeah, yeah,” Silver said, feeling slightly frantic, hoping against hope his quarry wouldn’t disappear again while he wasn’t looking. “Go ahead, I’ll cover this area.”

“Got it! See you in a bit!”

He watched after her for a few seconds, making sure she’d be out of sight, then whipped around. The other hedgehog and the princess were still there, just reaching the other side of the plaza, strolling along and laughing together. Silver clenched his fists at his sides, willing his stomach to stop fluttering, forcing himself to focus, readying himself….

He began to stride forward.

Sonic had managed to keep Elise’s spirits high the entire walk back to Castle Town. She’d tensed a bit upon reaching the gate back into the city, perhaps expecting the guards to stir up attention, but they’d only waved them through, giving Sonic instructions to quietly escort her around the empty areas on the outskirts of the town back to the royal castle out across the water. Elise had visibly relaxed upon hearing this, and she and Sonic had kept up their conversation as they walked, enjoying the sun overhead, Sonic more than happy to appreciate the architectural beauty of the place as they crossed an empty plaza (though he couldn’t deny his urge to run along the rooftops for a bit).

He felt that hardly anything could have spoiled the moment - interesting locale, good conversation, a new friend - if it hadn’t been for the ball of cyan energy that appeared from nowhere, speeding toward him.

Elise gasped sharply as he scooped her up and leapt away to the side, letting the energy splash against the cobblestones on the ground. Before Elise even likely knew what was happening, Sonic had set her down as gently as he could manage while still recovering from the dive and straightened, already staring around for the source of the attack.

It wasn’t one of Eggman’s creations, as he’d expected.

“I’ve been looking for you.”

The white hedgehog descended from above, bathed in a cyan glow that told Sonic he was the one who’d launched the attack, and landed in front of him and Elise. He wore battered boots and gloves with strange circuit-like markings on them, and his expression was angry, conflicted. His voice was tight when he spoke.

“You’re the Iblis Trigger,” he said, pointing an accusing finger in Sonic’s direction. Sonic quietly motioned Elise behind him, hoping she’d take the hint and back away, but she only stared, seeming slightly in shock. “And I know what you’re planning to do tomorrow.”

Sonic raised an eyebrow. “No offense, buddy, but what are you talking about?”

“I’m talking about your plans to release Iblis into this world!” The hedgehog’s tone rose, his anger seeming to build by the second, only bewildering Sonic more. “I know your secret, and your actions will condemn us all!”

“Who is Iblis? For that matter, who are you?”

Elise was staring wide-eyed beside Sonic. “He’s….”

“My name is Silver.” The hedgehog clenched a fist in front of him, and Sonic tensed, readying for another attack. “And for the future of the world, I’ve vowed to destroy you.”

“Elise,” Sonic said tersely as another ball of energy began to form around Silver’s hand. “Get out of the way.”

Silver’s entire body lit up.

“Now!”

Sonic dove just as the energy flew, narrowly dodging the second blast. He rolled to his feet and charged at Silver full speed, hoping to disable him quickly to figure out just what his beef was -

His entire body seized up.

Sonic struggled to keep his feet moving, keep running, even to just turn his head, but it was like electricity running through his veins - holding him in place like a puppet, suspended just off the ground. Silver’s hand was up, the palm pointed straight at him, his body shimmering with the same cyan glow that Sonic was now bathed in - and suddenly, too late, he understood.

“It’s no use,” Silver said, glaring at him, his eyes intense with what looked to Sonic like downright hatred. He struggled fruitlessly against the force holding him in place - psychokinesis, his power was psychokinesis, and as long as Sonic was caught in his grasp, he couldn’t break free.

He sucked in a breath and braced himself as the glow intensified, then his head was jerked painfully forward as a blast shot him back, flying through the air until his back hit the nearby building with tremendous force.

All the air was knocked out of his lungs, and Sonic fell forward, coughing, feeling the handkerchief around his arm begin to moisten as the blow reopened his wound. He gritted his teeth, forced himself to stand, and glowered back at Silver, who was looking furiously satisfied.

“All right, pal,” he growled, adjusting his stance. “You want a fight, you got one.”

Sonic took off running around the edge of the plaza as Silver charged up another ball of kinetic energy and let it fly, smashing into a window and sending shattered glass scattering over the cobblestones. Clusters of tables and chairs sat all around the edges of the courtyard, and Sonic ducked behind a number of them, hoping to bait Silver into running closer.

It worked - sort of. Silver walked up, his eyes never leaving Sonic’s form, just close enough to thrust out his hand and grab almost half of the tables and chairs in one go. “Take this!”

Before he could let them fly, Sonic leapt over the remainder, swept himself into a low, spinning kick, and knocked Silver’s legs clean out from under him.

The café furniture clattered to the ground as Silver’s concentration broke. He was on his feet again in a second, but before he could react Sonic delivered a straight punch to his chest that sent him staggering backward, gasping for air.

“Will you just stop for a second?” Sonic said, staring at his opponent, still bewildered by the attack.

Silver responded by throwing out a hand and yanking it back quick as a flash, and Sonic felt himself hit from behind, thrown forward and partially buried by the same furniture he’d forced Silver to drop a moment before.

Sonic twisted, then spun, using his spines to shred his way out from under the heavy wrought iron, and dashed to the far side of the plaza. He was forced to leap to the side to dodge another barrage of weaponized tables, but then he saw his opening - Silver was panting, looking slightly unsteady on his feet, though still glaring.

He’d used up too much of his mental energy in one go. Sonic charged at him once more, and saw Silver’s hand come up - but only a weak flash appeared, and his eyes widened as Sonic leapt at him feet first.

Two flying sneakers to the face were enough to take him down. Silver shielded his face, but the force of the kick spun him completely around and he fell, breathing heavily, onto one knee.

Sonic didn’t feel so hot himself, come to think of it. Whatever his issue was, he couldn’t deny that Silver had been nothing short of vicious in his attacks. It brought back memories of another superpowered, highly adversarial Mobian hedgehog - and while the story itself was painful to recall, it had ended in friendship, however strange that friendship sometimes was.

S’pose it wouldn’t hurt to try to cut this off early, then.

Sonic walked around until he stood in front of Silver, whose eyes were closed, looking hurt, defeated. He bent down slightly. “Hey, buddy. You okay?”

Sonic only realized his mistake when he saw the smirk.

Silver’s hand flew out once again and a bolt of energy hit him straight in the chest. He was sent flying once more, his back slamming into the wall just behind him - but this time, Silver didn’t let go. Sonic could feel the psychic grip around his midsection, squeezing, choking the life out of him, pinning him to the stone wall - he tried to gasp for breath but it was like trying to lift an iceberg with his chest - kicked, struggled, anything to get out of this suffocating grip.

“Stop! Don’t hurt him!” he heard Elise screaming from somewhere to his right, but the sound was distant, echoing.

Silver had never been defeated at all. Not even close.

Just as dark spots began to appear at the edge of his vision, abruptly Sonic felt himself being released, and collapsed to the ground, barely catching himself on all fours before his face hit the pavement. He coughed, gasped, breathing raggedly as air reentered his aching lungs, but he knew he couldn’t fight back. Not like this.

“Hmph. Is this a joke?” he heard Silver say above him, his voice tinged with disgust. Sonic raised his head enough to see Silver standing in front of him, bending down with his hands on his knees. “How could someone like you cause the destruction of our world?”

Sonic coughed again and managed to draw up enough air to gasp out, “What do you… mean?”

He watched Silver open his mouth, close it again, then straighten up and shake his head. “It doesn’t matter,” he said, though his tone sounded suddenly conflicted. “For the sake of the future, the Iblis Trigger must be destroyed. That’s what I promised. That’s what I….”

A scream interrupted him.

Sonic’s head jerked up in time to see Elise being lifted into the air by the same pair of metal claws as last night - the Egg Mobile had snuck up while everyone was distracted, Eggman grinning down at him from the pilot’s seat.

Sonic scrambled back to his feet just as it began to speed away, up into the air, but another blast hit him from behind, and he went toppling forward again, back to his hands and knees.

“Don’t you dare turn your back on me!”

Sonic gritted his teeth.

“It’s time I finally put an end to this, Iblis Trigger.”

Elise was gone, kidnapped once more so close to safety, and this other hedgehog had threatened him one too many times. His chest still ached, but Sonic clenched a fist and punched it against the ground, ready to fight for his life - and at that moment, a familiar voice screamed “STOP!”

A whoosh of air behind him told him help had arrived.

“Amy?” Silver said, his voice muffled slightly by the third hedgehog standing between him and his quarry. Then his voice hardened. “Get out of my way, Amy. This is my mission.”

“ABSOLUTELY NOT!”

The sheer fury in her voice was all too familiar to Sonic, but he heard a shuffling of boots as Silver stumbled back in alarm. Grinning to himself, Sonic pushed himself back to his feet and turned - Amy was standing facing Silver with her arms outstretched, and even without seeing her face, Sonic could tell she was livid with rage.

“Thanks, Amy,” he said, rubbing his arm where Elise’s handkerchief was still tied. “I appreciate it.”

“Leave it to me,” she said, her voice tight with anger. “You do what you have to - I’ve got this loser.”

Sonic glanced over her shoulder, where Silver still stood uncertainly, and gave him a tiny, satisfied grin. Then he spun and took off running, even though the Egg Mobile had long since disappeared from the sky. When Amy got like this, not even the forces of hell itself could stop her.

Now it was just to find Eggman again - before he disappeared with the princess for good.

“The person you were looking for was Sonic?”

Silver gritted his teeth.

“Were you planning to KILL him?”

He sighed. “Look, I - ”

“You lied to me!” Amy’s green eyes were ablaze with pure hatred, standing with her arms still spread as though shielding the entire city from him. “You used me! All along you were hunting him down and you never even told me, you coward, you absolute monster, you - ”

Silver stood there, arms hanging limply at his sides, as Amy screamed at him every insult he’d ever heard in his life, along with quite a few that he hadn’t, swearing, practically spitting at him.

He shook his head and yelled back. “I didn’t know, okay?” He took a step toward her, then thought better of it as her eyes practically caught fire in response. “You never even told me what he looked like, I didn’t know we were looking for the same person! If I had known I would never have teamed up with you in the first place - ”

“WHAT, SO YOU COULD GO OFF AND KILL HIM IN PEACE?”

Silver clenched his fists at his sides, feeling himself becoming angrier by the second. “He’s responsible for destroying my world!”

“That’s crazy!” she yelled back, jabbing a finger at him. “Sonic would never do that!”

“But it’s true! Tomorrow, literally tomorrow, he’s going to release a creature into this world that will cause hundreds of years of devastation, and I LIVED it! I came back from the future to try and stop him! You don’t understand, I have to - ”

“NO!”

Silver flinched and took a step back.

“I don’t believe you.” She stared at the ground for a second, breathing heavily, then looked back up at him, fire reigniting. “Even if that’s what you think, if I had to choose between believing the world and believing Sonic, I would choose Sonic.”

She spat the last word at him, and it hit him like a bolt of fire to the heart. Before he could summon up the energy to say anything in response, she whirled on her heel and stalked away. He held up a hand with half a mind to run after her, then let it drop and stared down at the ground.

In all his time in this world, looking for his quarry, it had never once occurred to him to wonder if the Iblis Trigger even had a name. He’d become just a symbol in Silver’s mind, a sort of figure to direct all his hatred toward. But now… now the Iblis Trigger wasn’t a nameless concept but a person, Sonic the Hedgehog, friend of Amy Rose, whom Silver had begun to come to consider a friend as well. The only friend he’d had with him in this world, and now she was gone, and she’d probably hate him forever.

He sighed and shut his eyes. And her loyalty to a friend, her refusal to simply let him die even to save a world….

If Mephiles had approached him in his own time and told him the only way to stop Iblis was to kill Blaze, could he have gone through with it?

He knew the answer to that.

He squeezed his eyes tighter shut, took a deep breath, and reopened them. Amy’s red dress had long since disappeared from view, as had Sonic’s bright blue form and the contraption that had grabbed the Soleannan princess. The streets were empty, and Silver felt more alone than he ever had in his life - even after his father had died and left him to wander the wastes alone, all those years ago.

All those years ago, he thought - but that was the future, now. Time travel was beginning to make Silver’s head hurt.

He bit his lip and began to walk.

Kingdom Valley, afternoon

By the time she and Shadow reached the far end of the valley, Rouge was thoroughly unamused. The place was crawling with more battle-ready mechs than, in her opinion, had any right to exist in a locale with so few places to hide. She was forced to use almost her entire remaining stock of bombs, blowing mechs to bits while Shadow launched larger scale attacks off to her side. More than once she simply stood back to watch him at work, tearing robot after robot to bits with kicks, Chaos spears, and the like. She admired his form, and couldn’t help being grateful he was around to take care of the heavier fighting.

For her part, Rouge often scouted ahead, relaying information on where to go next back to Shadow in a manner that had served them well in the past - landing next to him to let him know that another intact tower lay ahead, or that the wall to their left looked unstable from the air.

“Why is this place so ruined, anyway?” Shadow asked, readjusting his gloves in the center of the last group of robots they had defeated. “Some of these old castle ruins look ancient, but others seem more recent.”

“Exactly right.” Rouge reached into her bomb bag and frowned - only two left. Well, she could get GU to replenish her supply once the rendezvous team picked them up. “From what I’ve read, it’s Soleannan tradition to build their royal castles in this valley, standing above the lake. The one at the far end was the most recent, and this one we’re standing in is the first. Musta been a thousand years ago this was built - look around.

They stood for a moment, staring up at the room they were currently standing in - if it could even properly be called a room anymore. The roof was completely gone after centuries of wear, and only half the walls still stood. Rouge figured it might have been an ancient dining hall by the faint carvings on the walls, but all furniture was long since gone, taken away or completely disintegrated with time, leaving only a bare, round, open-air platform above the water below.

“The first castle we passed isn’t active. It looks abandoned.” Shadow kicked the bits of the mech he’d taken apart over the edge, where they splashed into the lake. “But very recent.”

“The former king of Soleanna used to reside in that castle,” Rouge said, pacing and wondering idly when the team from GUN would arrive. It was long past time, after all, and there shouldn’t be any more threats around thanks to her and Shadow’s efforts. “But a major accident occurred there ten years ago, and no one’s lived there since.”

“Accident?”

“Mm.” Rouge fished around in her bag and brought out the scepter, turning it over in her hands and admiring its glow. “I heard that a prototype energy engine failed and exploded. Killed the king and a lot of researchers. The whole lab was shut down, and the castle was left as a monument of sorts.”

“They built a common scientific lab under a royal castle?” Shadow frowned. “That seems odd.”

“The whole story is odd, really. A lot of missing information. You ask me, sounds like there was a cover-up, but no one’s ever really looked further into it. I think the name of the plan was - ”

“ - the Solaris Project?”

Rouge’s head snapped up at the same time Shadow’s did. Descending from the air above them was a floating vehicle that looked rather familiar, though Rouge could see it had gotten a significant upgrade since the last time she’d encountered it. And sitting in the pilot’s seat, the last person she wanted to see at her rendezvous.

“It was an ambitious project named after their eternal sun god,” Eggman said, smiling rather nastily down at the pair of them. “And one I’ve had cause to do quite a bit of research on lately. What a marvelous coincidence.”

Rouge placed a hand on her hip and gave him a wave with the hand holding her stolen scepter. “Hi, Doctor.”

His response was a slight, mocking bow. “It’s been a while, my dear Rouge. And, of course, Shadow.”

Out of the corner of her eye, Rouge saw Shadow’s mouth tighten into a thin line.

Eggman raised his hand and gave the slightest gesture, and Rouge’s ears filled with the cacophonous sound of at least a dozen robots, all descending from hidden positions around the tower walls and landing around her and Shadow in a circle, guns trained on them in the center. Her eyes narrowed - she’d checked this location thoroughly from the air, which could only mean Eggman had positioned those there at the last moment. But how could he have done so without her noticing…?

“I think our chances of the contact making the rendezvous are nil,” Shadow muttered, sliding around until they were back to back, tensed for a fight.

“Now,” Eggman said as the circle tightened slightly, “if you’d be so kind as to hand back the Scepter of Darkness that you took from me.”

Scepter of Darkness? Ah, so it has a name, does it?

This assignment was getting more interesting by the hour.

“Sorry, Doctor,” she said, holding the scepter close and making a show of admiring it, “but I’ve grown attached to my new little trinket. I think I’ll keep it, if that’s all right with you.”

“Come now, I already have one of the pieces of the puzzle stowed safely back on board my battleship. No need to make this harder on yourselves.”

“Leave, Doctor,” Shadow growled. “We’re handling this ourselves.”

Eggman’s brow furrowed, and he gave another gesture. “Perhaps this will change your mind.”

She and Shadow leapt as one - Shadow to the side, Rouge to the air. The missiles from the robots’ cannons shattered the stone where they had been standing, creating a small crater and scattering shards of rock everywhere. Rouge twisted midair and hovered, looking down, expecting to see a frustrated Eggman and a very busy Shadow - but Eggman wasn’t there. Shadow landed outside the circle of mechs, looked up at her, and his eyes widened.

Rouge spun in time to see the clenched metal fist extending from the Egg Mobile, rushing straight toward her face.

The blow from Eggman’s machine knocked her cold, and as the scepter slipped from her grasp and both began to plummet, Shadow made a split second decision.

Rouge or scepter?

Scepter or Rouge?

There was no contest.

He kicked off, shoving brutally past a mech in his path and leaning back at the last moment, extending his arms. Rouge fell, limp and unconscious, into them, and the jets at the bottom of his shoes activated in time to prevent them from sliding straight into the legs of another mech. He landed on his back, Rouge on top of him, and he pushed her back onto the ground as gently as he could before leaping back to his feet, anticipating another attack.

Instead, he heard Eggman howl “No!” and spun in time to watch the scepter fall, spinning and spinning and landing not ten feet away directly in the center of the circle of robots, shattering into pieces as if it were made of glass.

Immediately, all the robots began to shudder violently and spark from their joints. A flash of strange, dark light emitted from the broken pieces of the scepter, pulsing and flickering like a purplish fire. Rouge began to stir at his feet, putting a hand to her head, and Shadow moved forward cautiously, reaching out to touch the light -

A pulse of sharp energy stung his finger from several feet away and caused him to halt, teeth bared. He heard Rouge yell his name from behind him as the light flashed brighter than before and then grew, shaping itself into a bullet of dark energy, energy that he could feel crawling against his skin even from here.

Shadow drew in a sharp breath as the energy shot off, whipping around the entire circle of robots, each one crumpling in its wake - he could hear Eggman shouting for them to pull back and the engines of his vehicle gunning as the energy grew brighter, drawing power, and despite himself, Shadow took a single step back as it finished its round and darter straight toward him.

At the last second it plunged downward, down into the darker patch of stone where his own shadow lay, and his eyes widened as the energy seemed to absorb the darkness from it, growing, taking form, rising from the ground.

His heart nearly stopped as he saw the shape it took.

“What?” he heard Rouge breathe behind him. “Your shadow… you’re Shadow….”

It was like looking into a mirror, a mirror that sucked the color out of the world. The being in front of him could have been his twin, with the upturned spines, the jet shoes, even the four rings around the wrists and ankles - except that every part of it that wasn’t black was dull gray. It stood with its eyes closed, its arms hanging as though attached to enormous weights, one ear limp, the other twitching as if trying to figure out how it worked. Then it opened its eyes, and Shadow swallowed convulsively - unlike his own, red-orange and alive, these were a poisonous green, slit-pupilled, alien and malevolent.

Perhaps most disturbing of all, the creature had no mouth.

The sound of laughter emanated from its face, and the body shuddered strangely in a manner that Shadow hoped his own never had. It raised its arms and fixated its gaze on him, and he tensed, ready for a fight. But it simply said, “Oh, how ironic fate can be! I never would have believed I would be resurrected through your shade.”

Even without a mouth, Shadow could almost feel the cruel smile that would have spread over its face.

It lowered itself into a bow, sweeping one arm across its chest like a puppet being controlled by loose strings. “I thank you, Shadow the Hedgehog.”

Shadow stiffened, and felt Rouge do the same behind him.

“Who are you?” he said, his voice tight, still feeling the strange cold crackle of energy in the air around him. “And how do you know my name?”

The being’s arm dropped, and with its head still hanging, it began to shuffle toward him, still looking weighed down, heavy, unwieldy. “I’m Mephiles,” it said, as though relishing every word. “Mephiles the Dark. What, did you forget me? We’re like old friends, you and I….”

“I don’t know you,” Shadow said. He heard the click of Rouge’s heel on the stone as she took a step back, but he refused to back away as Mephiles reached him, standing barely a foot from his face. Then it raised and tilted its head, and one eye slid around to fix on him.

“I owe much to you, Shadow.” It began to raise a hand, and this time Shadow did leap back, lifting a hand of his own in defense as a ball of the same dark energy began to form in Mephiles’ palm. “Oh yes. What you gave to me, I now return to you.”

The ball of energy grew and sparked, and Shadow reached behind him, grabbing Rouge’s wrist.

“A one-way ticket to oblivion.”

Then the ball exploded outward and Shadow hissed as it hit him, sucking the breath from his lungs, a twisted but strangely familiar feeling forming in the pit of his stomach as his vision whited out and an intense cold swept over him - Rouge cried out sharply from behind him and he tightened his grip on her, the world spinning and swirling around him until he could no longer tell up from down -

He landed on his feet, but only just, keeping his balance by instinct alone. Rouge’s wrist hadn’t left his grasp, which was a relief - but upon opening his eyes and looking around, relief quickly turned into a feeling of disturbance.

They were standing in a hallway, a large window overlooking a hillside with a city visible far away - except that the air was gray and hot, the window shattered and grimy, the city completely wrecked. Everything around them looked scorched and long-abandoned, as though a firestorm had swept the entire area years ago, leaving the place completely barren and devoid of life. Even the sky was dark, covered in clouds that were reminiscent of smoke, not a hint of sunlight cutting through.

Rouge stepped forward toward the window, her wrist slipping out of Shadow’s grip and her eyes widening. Shadow followed her, staring out at the landscape laid out below them.

“What is this place?” she said, her voice low, as though afraid of disturbing something nearby - even though as far as Shadow could tell, they were the only living things in the area. The thought wasn’t a comfort.

“It seems we’ve been teleported to another location,” he said. She glanced at him.

“I could see that.” She nudged him. “Maybe we should find out just where we are.”

Taking one last long glance out at the wrecked and burned city below, she stepped back and Shadow heard the click of her boots as she began to make her way down the hallway. He nodded and turned to follow her, but he couldn’t help staring at the city for one moment longer, his mind racing.

“Mephiles,” he murmured aloud, testing the name on his tongue. It wasn’t familiar, but something twisted in his gut, something dark.

Who is he?

He shook his head and jogged after Rouge, hoping something in this strange new place would hold answers.

#A Flame in the Dark #Chapter Eight #Sonic 2006 Adaption #Sonic Fanfiction #Sonic the Hedgehog #IT'S NO USE

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