Mirror Image

III - Familiar Faces

Sonic opened his eyes to the dim light surrounding him, his head pounding. He could see the vague outline of a hedgehog leaning over him, their hand on his shoulder.

"Sonic?" their voice came, but they were a thousand miles away in his head, "Dammit, Sonic, stay with me!"

Sonic opened his eyes again, squinting. The dim light around him offered little detail, but he could make out the form of Shadow standing over him, arms folded and scowling.

"You finally decided to wake up, eh Faker?"

"Shadow," said Sonic, wincing at the pain in his side as he tried to rise from the floor, "What happened? The Emerald –"

"Was a fake," the dark hedgehog said, "and booby-trapped. It got me too. Unlike you I was smart enough to be on level ground when it happened."

Sonic thought of sending a snarky remark back, but the aches he felt all over shifted his focus.

"Where are we?" said Sonic. He looked down at himself to see his body covered in bandages, "Shadow, did you patch me up?"

"No. When I awoke you were like that. Someone fixed you up, and moved us both to this antechamber."

Sonic peered around the room. They were still in the temple; he could see that from the carved stone walls, but in a smaller room than the Emerald chamber. The light glowed dimmer, a couple of crystal sceptres emitting an eerie blue light. A familiar face drifted through Sonic's mind, shocking him alert.

"Oh no," he said, his voice quavering with panic, "Tails is still out there! We need to get moving Shadow, he might be in danger."

"I don't think you'll be going anywhere, hedgehogs," a menacing voice came from across the room.

The rotund form of Dr. Eggman emerged from the shadows, a wide grin shining from beneath his enormous moustache, tinted a glowing blue by the crystal light.

"Your fox friend will be quite safe, for now."

Without saying a word Shadow charged towards the corpulent doctor. Eggman kept his grin, and didn't recoil from Shadow's ferocious surge forward. Seconds later a crackling field of blue lightning enveloped Shadow and hurled him onto his back.

"Oh please," sneered the Doctor, "You really think I would leave you in a room unsupervised, and not put in a force field? What do you take me for?"

Shadow rose to his feet, his face radiating fury at the mad scientist before him.

"Someone who's about to die," Shadow snarled, crimson light surrounding him, mingling with the blue light into an ominous purple, "CHAOS CON-"

The blue lightning struck Shadow again, this time with more ferocity, causing him to bend double. Sonic's heart leapt into his mouth as Shadow writhed in agony.

"I wouldn't try any of your Chaos tricks in here, Shadow," gloated Eggman, "this isn't just any forcefield, you know. It's a Negative Chaos Inversion Field. A masterpiece of my own design, it redirects Chaos energy back on the user tenfold."

"Why don't you just kill us and be done with it?" asked Shadow from the floor where he lay.

"Kill you?" Eggman began to laugh, "Boys, boys, I don't want to do that. Contrary to what you might think, I'm not a monster. I even patched you up, you annoying blue thing. Besides, I need you alive, you two have a starring role in my latest project."

"Whatever you've got planned, we'll stop you," Sonic protested, trying to hide his pain from his enemy.

"Oh I don't think you will, Sonic," said Eggman, a threatening tone undercutting his voice, "you see, I have some special guests I'm dying for you to meet. I'm sure you know them very well, you have so much in common." The Doctor turned towards the darkened reaches of the chamber.