Mobius Rising Chapter 14

Shadow quickly disables the force field to the fifth Chaos Emerald and takes the jewel off of its pedestal.  Rouge was waiting behind him with a small bag and he drops the jewel in the bag with the rest of the emeralds.  Rouge was impressed that Shadow still retained all of the security codes to what seemed like every case containing a Chaos Emerald.  As they moved on to the last Chaos Emerald chest, Shadow pauses and suddenly looks around nervously.

Rouge leans in close and whispers, "What is it?  Did you forget the code?"

"No..." Suddenly Shadow dives for Rouge and knocks her to the ground, "GET DOWN!"

As soon as they hit the ground a searing blast from one of Dr. Robotnik's doom bots rips through the air and liquefies the spot that they had been standing on.  

Shadow removes the two gold bracelets from his wrists and gives them to Rouge, "Hold on to these!  Don't drop them or I can't guarantee that you'll survive my Chaos Blast." Shadow says with a snarl, "Now hide yourself, I'll take care of them!"

Rouge quickly slips the bracelets onto her own wrists and flies high into the ceiling without another word.  The bag of Chaos Emeralds were tucked safely into her belt.  Shadow turns to face the doom bot as it lumbers toward him.  With a snarl, Shadow's entire body begins to glow with Chaos energy as he prepares to unleash his Chaos blast.  Shadow knew that he had to space out his Chaos Blasts carefully.  With only two rings to protect himself from his own destructive abilities, if he used his Chaos Blasts too close together he would be at risk for over-straining his system.  As Shadow powered up for a massive Chaos Blast, seven more doom bots lumber out of the shadows.  One of the robots had a small monitor screen on his chest.  As Shadow watched, the screen flickered to life and Dr. Robotnik's leering face stared out at him.

Dr. Robotnik laughs, "Oh Ho, Shadow!  Welcome back!  I thought you were dead... I'm so glad to see that you're still among the living!  I have such plans for you!"

Shadow flattens his ears to his head with a snarl and takes a step backwards.

"I'm surprised that you would take such a risk returning here just to steal my beloved Chaos Emeralds... what good are they to one such as yourself?  It's not like they would increase your powers," Dr. Robotnik continued, "Care to inform me of your master plot before we continue on?"

"I have my own reasons for collecting the Chaos emeralds.  My purpose is no concern of yours" Shadow hisses.

"Aren't we the feisty little hedgehog?" Dr. Robotnik chuckles, "Well it's no matter.  There's no way that any of those Chaos Emeralds are going to leave this fortress.  Neither are you for that matter.  I'm not about to let you slip through my clutches again.  I have too much fun in store to let that happen." He says with an evil smile.

The doom robot with the monitor steps forward and holds it's hand out.  Dr. Robotnik's image flickers slightly, "Now be a good little science experiment and hand over the Emeralds.  I'd hate for them to be damaged when I blast you."

Shadow suddenly realizes that somehow Dr. Robotnik was not aware of Rouge's presence.  Shadow didn't know how long he could keep Rouge a secret from Dr. Robotnik but he decides to use this to his advantage.  Without giving Dr. Robotnik any warning, Shadow unleashes his Chaos Blast.  Everything living in a ten foot radius of the small black hedgehog was vaporized instantly.  Rouge would have been killed as well if she wasn't wearing Shadow's bracelets.  She shivered as the waves of destructive energy flowed over her body.  Within moments the destruction is over and Shadow stands among the smoldering ruins of Dr. Robotnik's robots.  The Chaos Blast had shattered the case of the last Chaos emerald and Shadow reaches over and removes the glowing jewel from the debris.

Rouge drops from the ceiling and runs over to Shadow's side, "That's the last one!  We should go before..."

Suddenly, before Shadow could yell at Rouge for coming out of hiding early, a green glowing force field springs up around Shadow.  Shadow recognized this force field.  it was very similar to the one that had trapped him before but the color was different.  Almost as soon as the force field activated, Shadow could feel his Chaos energy being drained from him.  The single chaos emerald that Shadow had been holding falls from his hand and rolls outside of the force field unharmed as he falls to one knee.  A smaller flying droid comes speeding around the corner.  It too had a monitor on it and Dr. Robotnik's leering face stared out from it.  His entire face was twisted in sadistic glee.

"Oh so you're not alone!  I should have known you were behind this, Rouge.  My pretty little pet... how did you manage to entice Shadow back into my clutches?" Dr. Robotnik says as he circles Rouge with his hover droid, "It makes perfect sense that you were the reason Shadow was collecting the Emeralds... what doesn't make any sense is why he'd agree to do such a foolhardy thing."

Rouge looks over at Shadow who seemed to be having a difficult time breathing in the force field as the Chaos energy is drained from him.  For the first time in a long time Rouge felt bad for what she had done.  She frowns at Dr. Robotnik, "Listen... we made a mistake coming here.  Tell you what... I'll give you back the Emeralds and you let us go.  We'll just pretend like this never happened."

Dr. Robotnik laughs a hearty belly laugh that made the hover droid tremble with it's resonance, "Let you go in exchange for the emeralds?  Oh Rouge... I haven't laughed that hard in years!  Do you realize how long I've been trying to recapture that spiky haired chunk of doom over there?  He's worth a million Chaos Emeralds to me.  With Shadow under my control once more you and your stupid Freedom Fighters, even with the chaos emeralds, don't stand a chance against me.  In fact... why don't you just take the emeralds and go.  I'll get them back eventually anyway."

A look of horror crosses Rouge's face, "No this wasn't the way this was supposed to happen!  You can't do this!"

Suddenly the floor begins to vibrate as several more destructo bots appear out of nowhere and surround Rouge.  Upon seeing their weapons Rouge knew she wouldn't stand a chance against such firepower.  Dr. Robotnik chuckles again.

"Oh Rouge.  You've worked for me before... you know very well that I can and will do this.  I'm surprised... since when would you turn down such a lucrative deal?  I know you can't possibly care about that creature... if you did you wouldn't have forced him to come back here."

Rouge looks down at the bag of Chaos Emeralds and can't help but be mesmerized by their beauty.  Suddenly she was torn at what to do.  She was being given the chance of a lifetime... and the only one who was going to suffer for it was a being that wasn't supposed to exist anyway.  Rouge looks from the gems to Shadow and then closes the bag of gems and flings them at the floor beneath the Hover droid.

"I'm not leaving without Shadow." Rouge says a bit more forcefully than she'd have liked.

One of the Hover droid's arms reaches down and picks up the bag with the emeralds in it, "Well I'm afraid he's never going to leave my dear... at least not alive," Dr. Robotnik says, "I made the mistake of leaving him alive before and he destroyed my entire clone army.  This time I'm going to make sure that he's not able to do anything to stop me."

The hover droid motions to the destroyer bots around Rouge to seize her and Rouge screams as the powerful robots lift her into the air and pin her arms to her sides, "Let me go!  You're not going to get away with this, Eggman!"  

Shadow manages to get to his feet in the force field, "Rouge!  Dr. Robotnik let her go!  It's me you want!"

The hover droid turns to face Shadow, "I gave her the option to leave, Shadow.  Don't worry.  I won't hurt her.  She's just going to keep you company until I'm through with you... which shouldn't take long.  Once I collect all of the DNA I need from you I intend to dispose of you."

Shadow's body begins to glow with fury but almost as soon as he began to glow his entire body was wracked with pain.  It was much more intense than it had been the first time that he had been imprisoned in one of Dr. Robotnik's force fields.  Shadow collapses to the floor with a cry of anguish.

Dr. Robotnik laughs, "Yes... you'll find that I've made some improvements on that force field.  Not only will you not be able to teleport your way out of there but if  you even think about using your chaos control too hard it will crush you from the inside out.  I must advise you that I don't need you alive to clone you."

Shadow gets to his knees breathing heavily.  A trickle of black blood was running from his nose, "Damn you..."