Chapter Text
To Be Their Monster
“The next thing you’re gonna say is that you will shoot, but you are secretly hoping not to because you haven’t even held a Wispon up until now. Yes, I do know that. Do you really want to test your marksmanship against a mind reader who knows where you are going to aim?”
The Cultist dropped their wispon, shaking, and quickly running away.
As soon as the would-be assailant was out of sight, Silver heaved a little in place. Though it wasn’t difficult for him to read minds of those near him, the bombardments of different thoughts and feelings as well as the absolutely invasive nature of it was making him nauseous.
What was worse about it all was… He was looking at some pretty intimate details of people he didn’t even know the names of. He saw all the different reasons why they became of the Children. It was disturbing, but also humanising. He missed fighting Eggman Robots or Phantom Ruby copies. At least he knew there was no trouble or dilemma in destroying them. But the Children? Even if led astray and causing harm, they were still at the end of the day, just ordinary people.
Not only that, but many of them were under the influence of their God.
And he saw first-hand how… influential… that being was.
“Let’s get moving!” Shadow ordered, snapping him out of his train of thought.
“R-right. Of course!” Silver replied, getting behind the mutant Ultimate Lifeform.
Silver followed Shadow as best he could. With no means to see his surroundings or avoid running into things, staying directly behind him was the best course of action he could take. Unfortunately, Shadow has very limited strength to spare in his current state. While he could lead, he was in no state to combat many opponents without risking collapsing altogether.
But, while Silver’s vision was limited, he was still able to see living beings around him. Even if they were on the other sides of walls. And unlike Shadow, even in only his second night still getting used to his monstrous form and corrupted abilities, he more than had plenty of strength to fight!
So, they had an unspoken deal. Shadow would lead the way and keep ahead, and Silver would deal with any foes they did face, minus any drones anyways. Since the mutant psychic couldn’t see robotic foes or machinery, Shadow dealt with them easily with a few dark energy projectiles.
The moment Silver saw enemies incoming, he would call out to Shadow to get behind him and take them down.
It was most efficient to use the mind-reading abilities to scare the nuisances away. Saves him from hurting them or risking them being killed, even if each time he did, he felt like a real monster.
But… Tonight he had to be a monster.
To be Freesia’s hero and helping Shadow escape and figure out the greater mystery at hand… He had to embrace that new identity. He used that power on Freesia and broke her heart, the least he could do to make amends was use that same power against the forces that ruined her life and likely was the reason for Shadow’s state of being.
It was at least good practice of what he could do with such powers as well. If he was going to be stuck turning into such a beast at night for a while, he may as well figure out his new body could do.
Or so he thought anyhow…
As he followed Shadow, following his lead over various obstacles and trying to navigate the confusing labyrinth and hopefully find the exit, they noticed something off about everything.
They leapt over a gap onto a platform that could take them to the other side. Or it would have if the power wasn’t out. The other side was also too far of a gap to jump over.
Any other time, Silver would have had little trouble getting them both across with his psychokinesis alone. But he didn’t have access to that, nor did he have time to wait until he would turn back to normal again. Unfortunately, Shadow’s abilities in his current state wouldn’t be of much help either.
He did have at least one trick up his sleeve to help them both out.
Silver used his monster-jaw hand and stretchable arm like a grappling hook to swing them over the gaps. The jaw clamped onto some sort of apparatus or pipes on the ceiling (not like he could exactly see what they were for himself), and with his other arm holding onto Shadow, swung them over to the other side of a large gap.
As soon as they landed safely, they decided to take a small break to note something that’s been silently bothering the both of them.
“They don’t seem to be sending anyone after us…” Shadow commented.
“Yeah… Nobody seems to be bothering us after that last guy.” Silver added.
“No robots either… It just feels like they are just letting us escape…”
“But why…?”
There was a pause, as if both of them knew the answer, but neither of them wanted to put words to the fears.
“When you were looking into the minds of our enemies, did you find any information that might explain why nobody seems to be after us?” He asked.
“To be honest, I didn’t see anything like that at all. Not that I was looking beyond their immediate thoughts unless I had to.” He answered, semi-honestly. “But, the last few Children we faced seemed a little… independent. Unlike the raid last night. So maybe… Maybe they missed the memo?”
Shadow went silent for a moment, before deciding to rip off the band aid and put into words the likely severity of their situation.
“If they aren’t sending anyone after us, after so much trouble getting us down here, that means one of two things, I think…” Shadow deduced. “Either they already got what they wanted out of us… Or there is something else at play here. I have a bad feeling about it all. I suspect we may be on borrowed time and we need to find out way our as soon as possible. The only reason they wouldn’t be worried about us escaping our cells at this point, is that something is down here with us, guaranteeing we will never make it out alive.”
“I don’t know what’s going on, but I feel the same way.” Silver agreed.
They nodded and continued trying to push forward. Finding ways upwards through the one part of Aquatic Base that was still in operation and hasn’t fallen to the decay he saw with his own eyes a few nights ago.
Despite the very real possibility that they were completely lost, Shadow’s navigation of the cult base of operation was confident and fast. Silver was trailing behind and struggling to keep up and avoid tripping.
“Do you know where we are going?” Silver asked.
“Yes and no.” Shadow answered, honestly. “… It’s strange… I don’t remember this place at all and yet… Deep down… I feel like I know this place like the back of my hand. It’s a surreal feeling. While my mind may have forgotten almost everything, my body still remembers. It’s giving me deja-vu.”
Despite how bleak the situation was; both of them as monsters trapped underground struggling to find an exit amid the very real possibility that something was out there or a very real danger lied ahead of them, Silver couldn’t help but chuckle a little at his choice of words.
“What?” Shadow asked, a little annoyed. “What’s so funny?”
“It’s just… Actually, it would be deja visite.” Silver corrected. “At least… That’s what Freesia told me when I first came to this time. Despite not visiting Soleanna before, I somehow knew this place like the back of my hand. That’s when I started having strange recollections of another timeline coming to me… But… I know now that this timeline did exist once. At least… I know that now. So, if you are feeling the same thing, I don’t have a single doubt that you were here once before.”
Shadow nodded.
“Maybe there’s hope for us getting out of here after all.” He commented.
They continued wandering the seemingly expansive labs. The eerie silence of everything kept them on edge. There wasn’t even any mechanical whirring or electrical buzzing either. Nothing but the sound of their footsteps on the metal floors, and the soft echoes of their breathing in the halls. Nothing to distract from the ever-growing dread that they may not get out alive, but neither of them could truly word what specifically was waiting out to get them.
They crossed great gaps in the darkness, knocked metallic spheres out of the way, ripped open sealed doors with brute strength, and even climbed the walls to get higher with no elevators online and no way to find any stairs.
It simultaneously felt like it was taking forever, yet also felt like everything was moving so quickly. Time was relative as they hopefully progressed to an exit.
Or so they thought…
They entered what seemed to be a large room of sorts. Silver had no way of knowing what it was, but one thing he did know was that Shadow froze in place.
“Shadow…?” Silver asked.
Shadow didn’t answer. He froze where he was. It wasn’t a trap, as Silver wasn’t affected. But he sensed something had happened to Shadow.
The way Shadow froze. Silver could sense the shock rapidly paralysing the former Ultimate Lifeform.
“Shadow… We need to keep moving…” Silver persisted.
Shadow didn’t respond.
“Shadow!” Silver snapped. “Don’t bail on me like this!”
But he still didn’t respond, or even as much as flinch.
Silver grabbed him and tried to shake him. As much as he dreaded the possibility of getting smacked in the face for it, he needed to get Shadow moving again.
Nothing. It was as though the moment they walked into the room, Shadow’s very soul left his body, and even the mindless beast that sometimes took his place was also absent.
A breathing, but otherwise dead entity.
“Ugh! Don’t make me reach into your head to pull you out!” He warned one final time.
Shadow still didn’t respond.
Silver had no choice. He had the gut feeling they were on borrowed time, and he needed Shadow to snap out of whatever spell he was under.
“Ugh… I really didn’t want to… But you leave me no choice…” Silver muttered, bracing himself for what he was about to do next.
Tapping into his powers once more, Silver reached into Shadow’s mind.
‘…I had no choice I had no choice I had no choice I had no choice I had no choice I had no choice I had no choice I had no choice I had no choice I had no choice I had no choice I had no choice I had no choice I had no choice I had no choice I had no choice I had no choice I had no choice…’
He heard Shadow’s thoughts whispering again and again.
Silver’s nerves were a little uneasy hearing that. It was quite foreboding. But… he really had little choice but to continue diving to see what exactly had Shadow frozen in place. He could see Shadow’s current emotional state. He didn’t know what exactly the feeling was, or knew how to word it aside from… cold…
“I know I had to do this at some point…” Silver muttered, bracing himself. “You literally asked me to do this… Though, I hoped it would have been after we escaped this place… H-here goes!”
The mutant psychic dreaded by what he might face. He had a bad feeling deep down that it wouldn’t be as easy as it was with Freesia. In fact, he knew he was likely to face a lot of resistance and obstacles.
Taking in a deep breath, he reached further into Shadow’s mind and took the plunge. His own sense of reality melted away as he dived deep into an endless ocean of sadness, darkness, betrayal, trauma, and so much more pain. He felt like he was falling, falling, falling, into a sky full of twinkling stars. A broken mindscape full of fractured memories…
Freesia kept running. It didn’t matter how heavy it was to carry Madonna, or how much her lungs burned. She had to keep running. She was running out of time. She needed to find them!
“Freesia? How much longer do we have left?” Madonna asked.
“Seven Minutes!” The green hedgehog answered. “That’s how long we have. Don’t worry about us escaping. If I can find them, I can use the chaos emeralds to get us all out of here with Chaos Control! If-If I can use a replica emerald to teleport myself with little issue… The real deal should be a piece of cake!”
“I hope so, Freesia…” Madonna commented.
As she kept powering through, running through the dark hallways and inactive machines, she saw some movement in the corner of her eye. At first, she ignored it, because as much as her curiosity was getting to her, she could not afford to stop to see what it was.
Fortunately, she didn’t need to check, as she saw it in the corner of her eyes again, a little more in her peripheral vision. Eventually, as she just kept running with everything she had in her, she saw it… A starfish floating in front of her. Pinkish in colour with a golden eye in the middle.
“… You?” Freesia gasped.
She recognised the entity. She knew not to react in fear.
“Freesia?” Madonna inquired. “What is it?”
The green hedgehog didn’t answer at first. As she kept running, she watched the floating starfish keep up with her, trying to swim through the air away from her and occasionally looking back. It seemed to be trying to show her the way.
Freesia followed, hoping it would lead her to either a way out or where Shadow and Silver were to get all of them out at once. She followed it down a long corridor and into a room.
“… Dead end…” Madonna commented.
The hedgehog almost stomped her feet in frustration. It was a waste of time!
But the starfish didn’t let up. It circled a corner of the room. It was difficult to see in the darkness, but the light emanating from the emeralds gave enough of a glow to see something twinkling.
Freesia placed the human down to investigate the items. She pulled out the blue emerald and quickly scanned her eyes across the room. It appeared to be a storage locker of sorts that opened when the power was cut off. The twinkle was a bracelet of sorts. It looked familiar. That’s when she gasped. She checked the corner. She saw the small chest that contained the diaries. The bracelet that came in the box. Then her eyes fixated on one final item, and one she was glad to have back in her possession again…
“My kine…” She gasped. “They must have confiscated these during the camp raid! Oh, I missed you!”
It was all there… The most important items that set her on her journey to uncover the mystery. It was all there!
Wasting no time, she packed the bracelet and the diaries in the box, and grabbed her mallet.
After handing the chest to Madonna, and placing her mochi hammer into a special notch she made in the back of her dress to carry it, she picked up the human once more, ready to continue the hasty search.
At the doorway, was the starfish entity, waiting for them.
“I guess… Could you show me where Shadow and Silver are?” The green hedgehog asked.
The starfish nodded, and moved ahead of them, looking back once in a while to make sure she was keeping up.
“Freesia, what are you talking to?” The human asked, puzzled.
“Huh? You can’t see it? The pink starfish leading the way?”
“Freesia… Is some of that Komodo Dragon’s venom still coursing through your veins?” Madonna asked in a concerned voice. “Are you ok?”
“I feel fine, Madonna.” She replied. “I guess only I can see it for some reason. But sometimes when I felt lost and didn’t know what to do when I was a child, after my mom was captured… Sometimes I saw this pink starfish. I don’t know why but… Whenever I followed it, I always ended up where I needed to be when I needed to be there. Like a guardian angel of sorts. Though I guess, even though I am looking for my mom in this all too, whenever I saw this pink starfish… It was like she was still there with me…”
“As long as we can all get out in one piece, that’s the main thing.” The human answered. She didn’t sound too convinced.
“We’ll find them… and we will make The Children pay for everything they took from us! As soon as we are out of this place before it blows, we will have the upper hand in this fight for once! I promise you… Hope isn’t lost yet!”