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One with the darkness, Rouge made her way along the catwalks above the stage. Despite this being merely a school theater, the place was clearly equipped for even professional plays to be performed what with all the spotlights and other miscellaneous equipment hanging up there. It would've probably tripped up any less skillful spy, the bat thought.
Curtains hung everywhere, creating a maze of sorts onstage. Rouge found the captured hedgehog lying face down on the wooden floor in a cylindrical cage about three to four feet in diameter. Did he usually sleep like that? That seemed really uncomfortable. However, Rouge tended to sleep upside down when out on a mission for GUN, so she couldn't actually say anything.
Rouge was currently equipped with Honest's camera which she had brought with them in a black and red bag. Honest regularly joked that the only reason she had joined the photography club her second year was so she could carry a camera around campus and not appear suspicious. However, Rouge had to do a retake once she found this particular camera was to be used in a regular espionage mission. It was probably just a funny coincidence, but still.
I should take a photo of Sonic real quick so that Honest and Shadow can know he's all right, Rouge thought. Now would be the time to take it seeing as though Mephiles seems to be out of the room right now. There was a round, wooden stool sitting in the middle of the stage across from the cage Sonic was lying in. Perhaps that was where Mephiles had been sitting while keeping an eye on his prisoner.
Rouge quietly turned off the camera's flash to be extra careful Mephiles didn't somehow see it and become alerted to her presence. Rouge hovered down in front of Sonic's cage and aimed her camera. Although she tried to be quiet by slowly pressing down the capture button, the sound of the lens snapping shut was rather loud and caused Sonic to wake up and lift his head. Upon seeing Rouge, he let out a quiet "wha?".
"Sorry, Blue. We're gonna get you out of here," Rouge assured him.
"Ahem. Did you hear that?"
Hearing Sonic's kidnapper's voice, Rouge quickly flew back up to the catwalk above the stage, disappearing once again. That was a close one.
"No, I was sleeping," Sonic told him, wiping his eyes. Whether it was a deliberate action to get Mephiles to disregard the noise or just Sonic wiping the tiredness from his eyes as he had actually been sleeping just then, Mephiles bought it and just said, "Strange. It sounded like a camera flash."
Once the demon had dismissed it as a security camera and left again, Rouge heard soft laughter coming from the cylindrical cage below her.
"Rouge?" Sonic asked, sounding as mischievous as all get-out.
Oh, Sonic. Rouge floated back down and landed firmly on the ground in front of the cage. "Are you ready to get out of here?" she asked.
"Sure. Just let me get out of this cage and there's a door in the back," Sonic told her, reaching a hand underneath the front of the cage and lifting the whole thing up, slipping under it with ease and setting it back down behind him. The fact that it was so easy to escape worried Rouge.
"Too dangerous. We need to exit the front of the stage and get out that way. That's how I came in. Mephiles will probably see us if we go backstage."
"Fine," Sonic sighed, fixing his quills. That's when he realised what he was missing, now searching frantically with his hands. "My cell phone. I need my cell phone. That demon has it."
Rouge glanced at where Mephiles had disappeared to earlier and sighed. "Okay." She pulled her own cell phone out from, well, where she preferred to store things, and texted Honest.
"I've got Sonic. Peek into the theater and tell me if you see Mephiles anywhere." Honest read Rouge's text aloud. Honest and Shadow were standing beneath the metal awning outside. Rain pitter-pattering on the tin above their heads echoed in the small space.
"She's got him already?" Shadow asked, surprised.
"Of course. She's a master thief- er, professional spy. Now, come on. It's time to do our part." Honest grabbed Shadow's wrist and took off for the building, throwing the door open with her free arm and darting inside.
"I'll go look for your cell phone. Try to make your way offstage and out to Honest and Shadow," Rouge told Sonic, thinking it would be extremely dangerous to try to look for this phone when they could just leave now.
Sonic nodded and looked nonchalantly at the curtains. Rouge noticed how fearless he had been throughout this whole endeavor.
"You... Weren't afraid of anything bad befalling you while you were in here?" the bat asked, genuinely curious.
Sonic turned to face her once more. "Of course, not. I know he killed me in '06, but this isn't '06. Plus, don't you think the way Shadow had been worrying for me was totally cute?"
Rouge looked at Sonic as if she didn't know him anymore. "I was worried for you, too, you know."
"Oh, so you're jealous? Okay, Rouge. I see you," Sonic said jokingly, crossing his arms and looking away again.
Rouge scoffed and shoved his back playfully. "That's not what I meant! Everyone was worrying for you. You need to think about what others might feel before you decide you're not worried and get yourself kidnapped."
"Okay..." Sonic gave in, sighing. He then perked up once more. "But you know how Shadow gets when he's worried but doesn't want anyone else to know."
"Yeah, I do. He's my friend, too," Rouge sighed, forgetting for a second what she needed to do. "Oh, yeah." She flew upwards. "Go find Honest and Shadow."
Honest yawned an enormous yawn as she and Shadow made their way into the building.
"I can't wait to get all this over with so we can sleep. This day feels like a gazillion days, don't you feel that way, too?" Honest asked Shadow, her voice growing quieter and softer as they neared the theater doors.
"I guess, but I can't properly sleep until I know Sonic's absolutely safe," Shadow told her, focused on getting to the school theater.
"That's... Touching?" Honest stared at him confusedly as the two red-painted wooden doors were thrust open and none other than Sonic the Hedgehog burst through. All of Shadow's fur stood on end as he reacted in silent alarm.
"Sonic! You're okay!" Honest exclaimed, immediately running to him and jumping up and down in an extremely over-the-top manner. "What did Rouge do? Airlift you out? Find the lever that raised the cage? Have a battle of words with Mephiles and convince or intimidate him into letting you go??"
Sonic laughed. "Naw, I had the means of getting out of the cage myself, I was just waiting for Mephiles to leave so I could." Honest nodded, accepting his answer. "Rouge is trying to get my cell phone back from him right now. You know, it's the one Chris-"
Sonic was cut off when suddenly Shadow darted to him and grabbed him into a hug. "Uh, Shadow?" Sonic asked, eyes widening as he stared down at the fluffy black pineapple with confusion. Shadow lifted his head and stared up at Sonic through eyes burning with rage.
"How dare you play with our emotions like that, faker? Don't let yourself get captured like that for a play titled 'the Death of Sonic the Hedgehog' ever again, you hear me?" Sonic just kept the same look of confusion while he spoke. "I don't care if 'dying' was your intention; you're not allowed to make that decision without at least thinking once about the other people that would affect." Eventually Shadow let go and backed away with that same "you're dead to me" look in his eyes.
Sonic sighed dramatically. "So now you're going right back to that 'prepare to die' stuff. You're such a drag, you know that?" He couldn't be too fed up with Shadow, however, because he said that last line with a smile and a chuckle. "Does everyone really look up to me that much?"
"Actually, no one cares nearly as much as Shadow does whether you live or die," Honest mused.
"And that's something else that bothers me," Shadow said, turning to Honest now. "Why? Why am I the only one that cares?"
Sonic coughed. "Well, um, you're really not the only one. Rouge told me that everyone was worried for me. Honest, uh," Sonic gestured to Honest who, surprisingly, didn't try to stop him or dare him to continue. "Knew I was going to be alright all along. Why she didn't just tell you that I don't know."
"I did tell him that," Honest said rather confidently. "Multiple times, actually."
"I know that, but even despite that I worry," Shadow explained. It looked like he was really thinking hard about this. "I- I'm sorry. Can we go home now? I'm tired."
"We can't, though. Rouge is still in there," Honest reminded him.
"Oh, right." Shadow looked at the double doors that Sonic had come from. "Is there any way we can help?"
Honest pulled her phone out of the empty camera bag she was storing it in and pressed the lock button to illuminate the screen. She began typing a message to Rouge. Honest was one of those weird people who didn't use their thumbs to type and instead used her left hand to hold her phone and her right index finger to type.
"She says she has your cell phone," Honest relayed.
"Awesome," Sonic said and pumped his fist.
"And also Mephiles has noticed you're missing and locked all the doors. Uh... These doors?"
Honest darted to the double doors leading into the theater and pulled on them hard but to no avail. "How did he lock the doors so quickly?" She turned around and looked to Shadow. "What do we do?"
"I don't know. Ask the hero," he told her and turned to look out the glass doors behind them with his arms crossed.
At first Sonic didn't respond and appeared to be thinking. Then, he gestured towards Shadow and said, "Hey, Shadow. Don't you have a Chaos emerald? Why not teleport us all inside?"
Said shadowy pineapple turned back around, his arms still crossed. "Of course I do, but what if Mephiles is standing right there and spots us?"
Sonic shrugged and flashed a toothy grin. "I think we can afford to blow our covers now. He already knows we're here, remember?"
Shadow simply cocked his head to one side. "Fine. Give me your hands, er, let's fist bump." He stood between Sonic and Honest and put up two fists as a red glow began to form around the area in his spines where the emerald was being kept. The blue hedgehog and blond cat's knuckles silently connected with Shadow's.
"One more last fist buuuuuu-!" Honest sang, but was cut off when they were teleported.
"-uuuummmp!" She opened her eyes and gulped as the first thing they saw after warping inside was a very disappointed Mephiles alongside a very nervous Rouge holding Sonic's cell phone.
"Uh, Sonic, here you go," Rouge said, tossing the prized phone to Sonic who caught it with little trouble. They were standing between the rows of seats on the other side of the wooden doors they were standing in front of moments before. "And Honest, here's your camera back."
Honest stashed the camera away safely in its bag and straightened back up before giving Rouge an understanding nod and turning to Mephiles. Up to that point, Honest had been achieving the most serious face she could form, but all that seriousness quickly went away in a flurry of giggles once she opened her mouth. "You really thought we would let you go through with holding Sonic in a cage overnight just to make sure he performed in your dumb play the next morning?"
"You let me do it for one night," the eternal being of darkness known as Mephiles the Dark reminded her, er, pointlessly brought up again.
"Well, yeah, I had to play with you," Honest told him as if that were totally understandable. "I thought you would appreciate that."
When Mephiles just stood there silently, Shadow took that moment to interject from his place to the left of Honest, "Um, Honest? We didn't want his approval. We just wanted him to let Sonic go... and to not end his life tomorrow."
Sonic, on the other side of Honest, cupped a hand over his mouth and whispered into one of her large, triangular ears. "Could we maybe have more than that?"
Honest got what he was trying to tell her and nodded. "Hey, Mephy? Would you submit to being locked overnight in the same cage you locked Sonic up in? You know, so it would be even?" she asked. It sounded like a genuine request.
In no parallel universe even would Mephiles agree to something like that, Shadow thought.
"Sure, an eye for an eye," Mephiles agreed moments later, sounding completely serious. Also, that was ironic in more ways than one.
"Wait, really?" Rouge and Sonic almost said in complete unison by total accident. Shadow just groaned an "of course" and shook his head.
So, that was how they all spent the rest of their night, each taking a turn staying awake to watch Mephiles sit in the cage with his legs crossed and his eyes completely blank and devoid of expression and also, unintentionally making small talk with the demonic hedgy as he had no need for "sleeping" or anything similar and turned into somewhat of a blabbermouth when he was bored.
During Sonic's turn to watch him, Mephiles fantasized out loud about all of the many ways he might try and end the blue hedgy one of these days. At first, Sonic wanted to brag about how he could escape all of those methods of execution, but eventually the fantasies got all same-y and he found himself getting sleepier and sleepier every few gruesome details or so. He inevitably had to switch out with the next person in line once it felt like he would fall asleep at any moment.
Sonic warned Rouge how talkative their prisoner could be on his way out, so she tried extra hard not to reply to any of the demon of darkness's dumb attempts at a discussion. However, when she returned to where the others were sleeping to switch out with Shadow, she told him defeatedly, "Just don't let him drag you into a long, drawn-out debate like he did me," proving that she had finally accidentally broken the silence at some point during her turn at watching him.
Shadow went in to take his place on the wooden stool and saw Mephiles was sitting near the back of the cage peering out at him with his glowing lime eyes. So, yeah, not terrifying at all.
However, as soon as Shadow had managed to scramble atop the stool and sit down, the manifestation of murkiness moved out of the darkness in which he felt very at home to peer at him curiously from within his cramped enclosure.
When all he continued to do was sit there and look up at him and resemble a young child waiting for his teacher to read him a book, Shadow began to feel uneasy and asked, "What's your problem?"
"Oh, nothing," Mephiles answered, resting his head on his hand. "Just wondering what you see in that Sonic guy."
"I don't 'see' anything in him. I think you're confused," Shadow retorted.
"Hmm." Mephiles looked somewhere off to his left as if anticipating something. "What if I were to have ended his life by the time you got here? I bet you would have tried to kill me, would've you?" His eyes seemed to take on a more steely appearance as they locked with Shadow's as if to challenge him.
"That would be suicide, though," Mephiles reminded him, closing his eyes abruptly before Shadow could respond and turning away. "I can't die; you know that. That's the difference between your immortality and mine. While you may live forever without any interference, no amount of ill intention can endanger my life."
"I get that. You don't have to rub it in. That's why you have to be sealed away inside the Scepter of Darkness," Shadow told him, remembering well what Rouge had warned him of but frankly just not caring enough to act wary of it.
"And we already know the limits of that," Mephiles commented, sounding amused. However, Shadow didn't know them, so he couldn't find the amusement in what the demon had just pointed out to him.
"What 'limits'? The Scepter has no limits."
Mephiles looked confused. "You don't remember? Who has saved me from an eternity of boredom and solitude many times but your dear friend Honest?" He moved further back into the wire cage and laughed one of his signature, bone chilling laughs. An eerie piano could be heard echoing somewhere off in the distance. Shadow looked around trying to locate the source of the seemingly disembodied chords.
"'That big, scary monster was the plot!'" He imitated Honest and continued to laugh like he had heard a really bad joke that happened to be delivered at just the perfect time to be funny.
A vein protruded from Shadow's head. "You're seriously trying to recruit me now of all times? We've been through this."
"I need only plant the seed of distrust for now," he said, turning back around. "It's for your own good, I think you'll find."
"Oh, right. You're always looking out for me. It's nice to know I have friends like you," Shadow said, rolling his eyes.
"Aw, that's so nice to hear coming from you," Mephiles remarked, little withered flowers now rotating in the air heavily polluted with darkness around him.
"That was meant to be sarcastic." The vein grew bigger.
Okay, what he said about the Scepter of Darkness being the only way to effectively take Mephiles out of the equation might not actually be true. Eggman had a crank operated weapon which could encapsulate its target in a weird, powdery sugar cube-like thing. Technically that could work on anyone, though. No one but Eggman knew how it worked, just that it did.
Shadow blew out a puff of air in annoyance and crossed his arms angrily. "Anyway, just know I have my choice of methods to deal with annoyances like you. I trust Honest's judgement but only to a point, so nothing will hold me back when I eventually decide you need to go away for a while."
"So... Is it a three strikes, you're out kind of system?" Mephiles's head tilted at more and more of an extreme angle as he said this. "Or will there be one warning then punishment?" he asked next, pressing his face against the bars.
"More like, if you cause anyone physical harm, that's it," Shadow told him.
"Oh, you're much too forgiving. That I can definitely do. If that's what you're worried about, you'd better watch that Rosy character a little closer. Ooh, or Blaze. She's already burnt down the library once."
"Hey, why are you so talkative all of a sudden?" Shadow asked. He didn't really want or expect an answer from the mushroom sprouting hedgy, but he was just very annoyed.
"Oh, I've just been given a new... Spirit. Honest has been working a lot behind the scenes lately. A lot of things are changing," he said, looking absentmindedly offstage again.
"And she entrusted that kind of information to you, why?" He's gotta just be playing with me.
"You'll have to ask her that," Mephiles said, shrugging.
A lot of things were introduced into the story specifically for Shadow, so he knew there were some things that Honest wouldn't share with him. Still, why she would tell Mephiles was beyond him, or maybe...
"Alright, so only when it has to do with messing with me, you and Honest can come to an agreement for once. That's nice, I guess." Shadow let out a huge yawn. Mephiles took notice.
"Getting tired? It's close to four now. Feel free to switch out with your cat friend at any time," he told him.
"I think I will, actually, let you be her problem for a while." Shadow slipped off the front of the stool, his metal shoes making a clunk as they hit the wooden floor.
"Good-bye, then. It was a pleasure speaking with you," his demonic duplicate said as Shadow disappeared through the wall of curtains.208Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡhf4XCJ7bVP
