Teaching Darkness - Chapter 10

Shadow took a running charge at Rouge, who froze in place in her terror. She could see by the look in his eyes that he had truly become an evil monster. She closed her eyes and let the tears fall as she felt as if she had totally failed him. It was her idea to use the Emerald, and it was her who had botched it up.

Before the strike was hit, Rouge felt a set of arms wrap around her and pull her out of the way before she fell on top of whoever it was. She opened her teary eyes and saw a blurred dark shape of a spiky quilled hedgehog.

Without really thinking, she asked: “Shadow?”

She blinked and saw a clearer image come to view, and felt her face go red from the awkwardness of the situation.

Mephiles lowered his eyebrows almost sadly before responding in an apologetic tone: “Sadly… no…”

An angry growl sounding off behind them caused Mephiles to push her aside and get up to stand his ground, leaving Rouge completely bewildered.

“Why did you…” She felt the words die on her lips as she suddenly understood.

“I was just returning the favor…” Mephiles said as he quickly looked behind him to lock gazes with the white bat. She nodded and said “Thank you…”

Shadow collided with Mephiles, a spray of blood from one of them spattering on the trees around them, though it was hard to tell who. Mephiles felt his back hit the wall of rock behind them, knocking the breath out of him sharply.

Without a moments pause, he lifted his foot and planted it on Shadow’s stomach and pushed with the combined force of his arms as well, sending Shadow back first in to a tree, the force of it causing him cough up blood. Mephiles dropped to one knee and rose a shaky hand to his throbbing left shoulder, and lifted the hand slightly only to wince in pain as a sharp ache twinged through it. He lifted his hand and even Rouge could see the blood that had been left on the glove. It was Mephiles’ spray of blood earlier.

The injured hedgehog shook himself out of his trance that had set in from the sight and loss of the blood just as Shadow regained his composure, letting out a growl of rage as he charged at Mephiles again, hands glowing dangerously.

As Shadow prepared to attack, Rouge got up quickly and flew her way across the space between them and clamped herself onto his arm, dragging him down slightly as she collapsed in tears.

“… Shadow… please… stop…” She pleaded desperately to him as she hung on to his arm. “…Please, stop…”

He pulled his arm out of her grasp, and pushed her back roughly, using enough force to knock the breath out of her. She coughed for her breath as she felt her body shake all over as she felt a new, more painful set of tears coming on. She had looked to her side and seen Omega lying on the ground like a heap of brightly colored scrap metal several yards away, showing no signs of “life” as he had been put in stand-by. She was on her own now.

Mephiles had dropped to the ground to avoid a Chaos charged swipe, and flattened his ears as tiny charred chunks of rock bounced off his head. He was beginning to feel weak from his blood loss, but tried to push that aside as he tried to stay alive. He rolled to the side as Shadow aimed a jab at Mephiles’ heart, his shoulder quills getting singed by the heat of the green blaze as the hand dug into the ground instead.

“Hold. Still.” Shadow said huskily, all sounds of any compassion in his voice long died after the separation.

“Make me…” Mephiles said breathlessly, his hand gripping his shoulder as blood seeped onto the white chest fluff, staining it slowly. His eyelids drooped a little, and he swayed a bit, but his voice was full of determination.

“Gladly…” Shadow clapped his hands together, creating an intertwining cloth of crackling energy that was a brilliantly bright red color as he pulled his hands apart. The cloth rippled for a moment before twisting itself into a rope that he dropped on the ground.

Mephiles’ eyes widened as he watched the rope snaked its way towards him, and wound itself around his ankles and legs. He looked up at Shadow, who had a hand up, motioning the rope to do as he pleased. Slowly, it seem to Mephiles, Shadow brought his hand down, and the teal blue striped hedgehog felt himself get dragged down, falling to the ground heavily. He landed on his injured shoulder and let out a cry of pain.

Rouge tried to lift herself off the ground, her legs almost giving in a couple times before she felt steady enough to stand. Letting her wings do most of the moving, she shakily made her way to Shadow again, feeling herself wobble in the air.

Shadow was just about to end Mephiles’ life when he felt something clamp onto him again, this time from behind, burying itself into the small of his back, crying.

“…Shadow…” He heard the voice of the bat behind him choke. “Stop… Don’t you see what you’re doing? This isn’t you… don’t do this… don’t do this…”

He grabbed her hands and pried them off of him in one swift movement. He let go and turned around bringing his arm up slowly, hand dangling at the wrist. He flicked it up and thrust it forward in a palm strike fashion, an air pocket creating enough force to send the dismayed bat back again. As she slammed into the rock wall opposite of the other in the narrow passageway, she let out a cry of pain as her right wing was crushed between her and the wall. She slid down, her wing now lame; she could only sit there in horror.

Shadow laughed evilly as he turned his attention to Mephiles, who had managed to free himself from the rope while Shadow was distracted, and was now attempting to crawl his way to the nearest boulder to pull himself up off the ground. Shadow shook his head and said: “Why do you keep fighting? You must know the end is almost coming… It’s what you wanted, right?”

Mephiles felt those words sting him almost as bad as his wound did. Up until now… he wanted nothing more than to continue the circle of events that kept his existence alive throughout all timelines. But his time in Shadow’s mind, though, granted, it took him almost the whole time there, as well as receiving Shadow’s personality, he learned that he was wrong. And by letting Shadow become what he was now, he was letting a far worse fate take its place in the time stream. And now he was probably one of, if not the only, ones to change it.

Just as Shadow lifted his hand to perform a Chaos Spear, a sharp pain shot through his head. His body tensed up as his hands flew to his head, memories and images flashing through at an alarming rate. He dropped to one knee as a flood of recollections involving Rouge, Omega and their time as Team Dark. They echoed and repeated themselves, melding as some came clearer than others. He let out a dragged cry of... it was hard to tell if it was either pain or alarm.

Either way, Mephiles took this as an opportunity to check on Rouge. He stumbled over to where she was, panting from exhaustion and his blood loss before getting where he could lean against the wall.

“…You okay?”

“… I think my wing’s hurt…”

“Right or left?”

“…Right…”

“Can you move it?”

Rouge shook her head and looked up at Mephiles, tears flowing freely from her eyes. Mephiles looked a little worried.

“Does it… hurt that badly?” Questioning where the tears were coming from. Rouge shook her head.

"Well... then why-?" Mephiles stopped. He couldn't say why... but the look Rouge had given him as she looked up to answer caused him to stammer the fading question. He felt his heart grow heavy as he saw the tears that fell from the white bat's jade eyes.

He closed his own eyes and shook his head.

"I'm sorry... this is all my fault..." He said, grasping at his chest fluff, feeling a sharp twinge spike throught his heart again. If he was totally familar with how caring emotions worked... he might has recognized that twinge as one of guilt. Instead, as the other logical reason that seemed to come at him, he passed it off as part of his injury.

He found that Rouge's silence was just as bad as if it would have been if she had said: "Yeah... you're right... it is..."

He lowered his head, and a quick spasm ran through him. Rouge heard a sound that could be from the "sniffle family", and turn her head to look at the teal hedgehog. She widened her eyes when she saw a tear roll off Mephiles' nose, and spatter against his bloodstained hand.

And it was at that moment... Rouge could see that Mephiles wasn't truly as evil as she thought he was.