Sonic Series Fan Fiction ❯ No One is Invincible ❯ The Proposition ( Chapter 6 )

The Proposition

By Blue Dragon

AN: Always good to get a review that actually talks about the quality of the story, rather than other things, so thank you in advance once again. This is a fairly short chapter, a bit of a transition. The beginning doesn't seem much different from the game except for something significant, but the end is definitely going to be a huge change.

Eggman paced around in his mech. The walking arsenal seemed a bit jumpy after the beam, but it was good enough for the time. He stared at the anxious Rouge once again.

"Where in world is Shadow?"

Rouge shrugged her shoulders. "Who needs that ball of fuzz, anyway? We can get everything by ourselves, right?"

Eggman shook his head vehemently.

"Don't be a fool!" The foliage was crunched under the stomp. The moisture from the closely gathered trees of the jungle didn't help, either.

"Why did Prison Island have to be around a jungle? This is bad for my mech . . . and I didn't even bring any repellent . . . " Eggman grumbled to no one in particular.

"And let's face it, you've got a lot of body to cover."

Eggman tossed a lens-covered glare in the direction of Rouge. "Why don't you just be quiet before I blow a hole through you? Stop jabbering if you can't find anything helpful to say."

Rouge ignored him and turned around to face the expanse beyond. "Maybe we should just go on with the plan without him."

" . . . Shadow has been pretty reliable, but I'm not sure. Carry on with the plans, I suppose. Rouge, get that emerald."

She sighed.

"Is that all I'm good for to you?"

"What?"

"Getting emeralds. There's more to me than being a jewel thief."

"I'm not in the mood for a life story!"

" . . . "

"Do you hear me, bat girl!? We have a time limit, get moving! If we don't get those emeralds now, then it's game over, do you understand?"

Rouge sighed again, and wished she would actually get a real opportunity, after which she shook the thought out of her head. Her problems could wait, it was the mission first.

"Got it!" She flew off into the distance.

Eggman was glad to get rid of her, and used the opportunity to head off towards the main exterior of the facility, and out of that accursed jungle.

:::::::::::::

A few jets zoomed in and out of the perimeter of Prison Island.

"Rapier, I'm getting . . . . some jet on radar a few miles east of here. I think that he's trying to bust into here through air. Do you copy?"

The fuzzy radio chatter was heard only by the ears of the other pilot, who was also circling around the blue sky.

" . . . Omega, are you seeing this, we got a bogey. It ain't listening to our warnings, I think it's a hostile."

"What the . . . Omega! Omega! This is Omega 1, we've got a bandit!"

"Calm down. We're just going to shoot him down."

The sky seemed unusually clear, and in the distance, a strange jet approached.

"What the . . . Rapier 8 here, we've got the Tornado!"

"Damn . . . that's Miles `Tails' Prower in there! We'll never win! Bug out!"

"Screw that, I ain't getting' shot down by some toddler! Rapier 8, engage!" The jet spun in its course and barrel rolled at an alarming speed towards the Tornado, which was indeed piloted by Tails.

The offending jet fired a few missiles, only to have them evaded by the Tornado.

"The kid's a genius . . . Rapier, he's got systems to throw off the tracking of our missiles. We have no offense."

" . . . Let's bug out. Warn the base."

The Tornado was much faster than the SU-37's, however, and flew right past them.

"Amy, can you hear me?" Tails spoke into his radio. He knew Amy could hear him, but she wouldn't tell him what she was using or where she was.

"Loud and clear!" She seemed cheerful as ever, which was another miracle considering the situation.

"Prison Island is coming up, they're still trying to fight me off. I'm going to try to land on the outside of perimeter." Tails worked his shoes down onto the pedals built specifically for his height. He brushed the strands of his fur from the keys, and continued typing on them.

"TND-1D5s . . . . " he muttered as he maneuvered low so the new planes wouldn't pick him up. The TNDs were the only models of plane that could find him.

He aimed for what appeared to be a primitive runway in the distance.

"Great!" After a few procedures, the Tornado began to convert to its mech form and it approached the ends of the pavement.

"Wait . . . Is that Eggman!?" He began to speed up. He didn't think he would find the scientist anywhere near where Sonic was being held.

"Amy!?" He also saw Amy off in the distance. He began moving so quickly, that his entire craft lost stability and began to go down.

"Sonic!?" He laughed at himself. He couldn't help but say his name when he was in trouble. But for once, he needed to save him. He wouldn't always be the one to owe his life to his hero; for once, he would save him.

"This time . . . I'm going to be the hero . . . " He clutched his controls as the machine plunged towards the water, and prepared to launch again towards his destination.

::::::::::

It seemed quiet inside of ARK. It was, after all, floating in the middle of space; one of the ultimate expanses of serenity. The environment itself seemed to recoil at so many sounds in such a short amount of time, after experiencing near silence for fifty years.

Biolizard leapt through a dark passageway. In the chase, he had the upper hand. He was well accustomed to the environment, and knew the place very well. Shadow had a slight sense of hesitation before jumping after his quarry, and those fractions of seconds gave Biolizard precisely what he needed.

"Bio, wait!" Shadow called after him, but of course it seemed strange to him. After thinking he was gone for fifty years, it seemed very strange indeed to call out his name as if the two had just seen each other.

Biolizard's clawed feet scraped across another hall as he slid, and then began to run down that as well. Shadow slid in just in time to see him disappear up a duct.

In a quick bound, Shadow followed Biolizard up the duct as well, and then listened to the near silent sounds he made as he scurried around different pathways.

"Why do you want to get rid of me so badly . . . . " Shadow whispered, knowing that his old friend could easily pick up his voice.

"It isn't ready yet . . . Shadow, I'm not ready to fight you."

"Who said I wanted to fight . . . ? Aren't we old friends . . . ?"

Biolizard was prepared to respond, and then he closed his mouth quickly. "I doubt you're coming after me because you think that we can catch up. I bet it's probably some subconscious hope that you have."

"What are you talking about?" Shadow crawled a bit more. The place was poorly lit, and the only light would come from various slits. Shadow stood when he realized that the only ceiling was fairly high. He saw a flash of his old friend disappear around a corner.

"You know exactly what I'm talking about, Shadow the Hedgehog. You probably thought I was dead. And now here I am alive."

" . . . I don't understand. What do you mean . . . . " Shadow was bordering anger.

"You know what I mean, hedgehog! I mean that if you see me alive, you have some hope that Maria is alive as well. You don't want to see me at all, do you!? That's why you don't need to."

" . . . "

" . . . "

"That . . . that isn't-"

"Shadow, you know it as well as I do. If you deny it, your lie will be loud. But not because it is made to me, but because you make it to YOURSELF!" Biolizard launched forward at Shadow and grabbed him by the neck.

"Remember me!? OLD FRIEND!" Shadow struggled under his grip. He could see him in the light. It gave him a full realization of how dangerous Biolizard looked when he was angry. His eyes seemed to flash, and his pupils constricted in the light and in surprise. The teeth that lined his mouth seemed even more dangerous, and the claws didn't help at all. Biolizard had not only a wild character, but a wild appearance. An excellent combination of sentience and fierceness.

That of course didn't mean that Shadow would go down easily.

"Hiya!" Shadow launched a flurry of kicks that caught Biolizard in the gut and sent him into the ceiling, but he simply slashed down.

"Have you gotten rusty, friend!? Things must have been easy for you in the warmth of Maria's love!" Biolizard pulled a triple roundhouse and sent Shadow into the corner of the vent, and he didn't stop there.

"Biolizard, you're crazy! Nuts! Do you hear me!?" Shadow flipped forward and blasted his opponent in the face with the thrusters of his shoe, and then came in with a double roundhouse. Biolizard dodged the second one and grabbed Shadow by the arm. After a good wrestling, he launched two clawed kicks onto either side of Shadow's face, and sent him flying a different direction. This wasn't before Shadow grabbed the opponent by the tail and tossed him into his same direction, giving him the momentum to stop.

"I'm not nuts, Shadow! When she died, she held you! She spoke to you! She gave her life to save you. While what happened to me? I'll tell you what. I got the living hell beaten out of me by everybody and their freakin' grandma!" He finished the statement by flipping forward and landing in a double axe to Shadow's chest. The two began to pant, and Biolizard felt tired for the first time in a long time.

"Bio . . I thought we were-"

"What? Friends? Maybe we were. But now, when I see you, I just think of how much more you had than me. You know, when they built me, I studied myself. I actually researched the genetics of my own creation. Shadow, they built me with the sole purpose of making you. The pooled all of the crappy elements of the genes into one section, and the powerful dominant ones to the other. Then, of course, they gave me the DNA of what? A useless lizard that they found running around in the biology center!"

Shadow paused.

"I know what you're thinking, Shadow. You're right. That's why they call me The Biolizard. To make a long-ass story short, I got all of the recessive genes, the crap, the trash! You got all of the dominant ones."

" . . . Why didn't you tell me this before?" Shadow thought he was recovering, but as he felt the cold metal behind him, he only felt more tired. The lights in the distance illuminated Biolizard grimly. He was staring away from Shadow, who later noticed that he had drawn three lines of blood on the face of the reptile.

"Why didn't I tell you? I'll tell you why. Because I didn't want to remember it. I wanted to push it out of my brain, I didn't want to make you feel responsible for something that wasn't your fault. But then . . . " Biolizard began bending a metal bar with ferocious anger. "But then, you took Maria! You got more from her in a day than I did in freakin' weeks! She didn't give a damn about me!"

" . . . "

"You just stay quiet. You drove me to the edge. Imagine this: You took away all of the dominant cells, I didn't even have a genetic makeup; they had to use that damn lizard. Fortunately, I'm still a handsome devil."

Shadow inwardly rolled his eyes, and coughed a little as his panting rival continued.

"Basically, Shadow, you stole my everything, my genes suck. You robbed me of all I had before I was even born, while you were still just a bunch of blueprints, you took everything I had! Do you know what its like to know you're garbage from the day you were born?" Biolizard's muscles rippled over his body.

"Well no more, archetype. No more. If Maria can't love me, I will fulfill another dream. I will prove myself more powerful than you. I will prove myself stronger! That is my proposition!"

"Bio . . . we can just be friends! Let's forget all of this, you're one of the only friends I've ever had . . . . "

Biolizard simply pointed to the spot behind Shadow. Shadow turned, only to see metal, and when he turned back, Biolizard was nowhere in sight.

"Damn . . . " He was still as tricky as ever.

***