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StH: Possession (3)

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Chapter 3: Choices

Fiona glared back up at Rouge, tears beginning to fill her eyes.

“Y-you...”
“You can’t even form a rebuttal.” Rouge sighed, floating back to the ground, and releasing the vixen. “But if you don’t believe me, ask him yourself.”
“Believe me, I will...”
“Well, when Shadow stops beating him up.” Nic added, putting her hand on Fiona’s shoulder.

***

Sure enough, Scourge was currently being kicked around between treetops by Shadow. The dark hedgehog had surprised him with his initial attack, and before he had as much as an idea of what was happening to him, a fist connected with his ribcage with a sickening crunch, presumably the sound of a few ribs cracking, as the air was knocked out of him, and he was sent hurtling in another direction. He managed to open his eyes, and saw that he was in fact going up. Spinning himself, he managed to gain some semblance of form, and flared up Anarchy energy around his hands.

The sound of teleportation echoed somewhere nearby, and he had just enough time to register the sight of Shadow’s foot swinging into his vision, before it collided with his face, shattering his sunglasses, and launching him away yet again. He tore the ruined shades from his face, and prepared himself for a long drop to the ground. The drop never came, though. Another strike landed in his side, and he was sent corkscrewing back through the air. Finally, Shadow’s elbow dug into his gut, and he plummeted back into the ground, forming a sizable crater around himself.

“Pathetic.” Shadow spat, kicking the other hedgehog in the side. “How did I ever lose to you?”
Scourge spat a clump of dirt out, growling. “I’m wondering where you got so strong, Stripes.”
“My name is Shadow. You would do well to remember it. In case you hadn’t noticed, I’m no Freedom Fighter. Nothing’s stopping me from killing you right here.”

“Stop!” A new voice echoed, and both hedgehogs looked over to see Fiona making her way over to them. There were wet streaks on her muzzle, but aside from that, she didn’t look too badly affected by the fight.
“No offence, FI, but I don’t think he’s gonna have much trouble pulping you as well.”
“I’m not here to save you, Scourge. Not necessarily. I need answers first. Mind if I cut in, Shadow?”
“Make it quick.”
“Thanks.”
“So, what do you want to ask me, while I’m sitting here bleeding internally! Could use some help with this, you know.”
“Did you cheat on me?”

“W-what? Where’d you g-get that idea?” Scourge replied, his eyes widening, and a nervous smile appearing on his lips.
“I know that look. You’re lying! You told me that I was the only one! You told me that you’d stopped doing that! You convinced me to leave my home, my friends, my boyfriend, everything, so that that I could be with you! I gave up everything for you...” The vixen looked away, beginning to cry again, as Nic approached her, and pulled her into a gentle hug. The brunette’s ears folded back, and she pulled herself close to her friend. “And it was all a lie.”

Rouge gave Scourge a smirk, dripping with delight at the hedgehog’s downfall, while Nic glared hatefully, and spat on him.

“Finish him, off, Shadow.” She said.
“No, wait...” Fiona cut in.
“You’ve got to be kidding me...” Rouge said.
“Let me finish. Don’t kill him. Lock him up. Forever. No chance to get out. You can legally do that, he has no birth certificate in this world. Legally, he doesn’t exist. He doesn’t have any rights. Make him suffer.
“Now you’re talking, sis.”

Shadow smirked, and hoisted Scourge into the air, then fired a Chaos Spear into his chest, blasting him into a tree, which he slid down, unconscious.

“Right, the others are in the temple. They should be out soon. With any luck, I can get them to come quietly.”
“That was an abrupt change.” Rouge mused.
“Everything I thought I knew for the past five years has been a lie, and I’ve ruined my own life because of it. If I ever want to be someone again, I have to face up to what I’ve done. So I’m nipping everything he was up to in the bud, and tying the loose ends before I accept what’s coming to me.”
“Fair enough.”

Fiona left the four agents, and headed over to the temple entrance, leaning against the doorway. Nic followed after her, and eventually, Team Dark joined them. It didn’t take long for Lightning Lynx to appear, followed closely by Flying Frog, who had an arrow sticking out of his shoulder. Lightning was carrying a grey stone jar, marked with a few green crystals.

“What happened?” He asked, backing away from the new arrivals.
“Change of plan, Lightning. Turns out Scourge was an unfaithful asshole who was just using me as some kind of ace over Sonic and Tails. So he’s going to spend the rest of his life in a cell. I’m disbanding the team too, and the jar’s going to go somewhere else for safekeeping. I’d advise doing as these people say, and coming quietly. I’ll explain properly on the way.”

***

Warping back to base was easy enough, though Frog ended up being cuffed almost immediately, due to his lack of coherence. Fiona, with help from Nic, explained the whole story to the lynx., who sighed sadly afterwards.

“Something the matter?” Nic asked.
“Sorry, it’s just that it reminds me of myself and Conquering Storm. She didn’t cheat, but she sure as hell did use me, and threw me aside once I wasn’t useful anymore.”
“What a bitch.” The weasel said. “You don’t need anyone like that.”
“Thank you.”
“So what do we do with this thing?” Rouge asked, holding the jar that contained the Goddess’ Soul.
“Well, first off, those crystals are just glass.” Fiona said, immediately causing the bat’s face to fall a little. “And second, if I recall correctly, Tails’ uncle is a wizard. I’ll take it with me when I turn myself in, and make sure it ends up in the right hands.”
“I’ll come with you.” Nic added, hugging the vixen again.
“That sounds like a decent plan.” Shadow nodded.

It was then that Omega walked back into the room, and approached Fiona.

”Fiona, you are required in the medical chamber. Your test results came back anomalous.” He droned.
“Anomalous?”
”Follow me.” The robot replied, before leaving. Fiona looked at Nic, who shrugged, and the two friends headed after the robot.

***

The doctor on-duty at this point was a Mobian bison, who was puzzling over the chart in his hand.

“What’s the problem?” Fiona asked, as she was brought in.
“There’s a discrepancy.” The doctor replied. “You said you were born in May, 3221, correct?”
“Yes, on the 26th.”
“Well, your results say you can’t be older than sixteen.”
“That’s crazy! I’m twenty-one!”
“Mentally, maybe. But biologically, you haven’t aged a day since that point.”
“How can that be?” Nic asked, as Fiona looked down at her body, then up at her friend, noting that she was indeed smaller than she should have been.

“I might be able to answer that.” Came the voice of Shadow. The duo turned around, as the hedgehog walked into the room, followed by Rouge. “Since I wanted to gain a proper understanding of what I can actually do with my powers, and what affect they will have on me, I ended up talking extensively with Tails about the subject. He had a lot of theories as to what energy from other worlds could do to people, and he usually used you or Scourge as examples. Increased strength and altered colouration has been displayed by both of you, for example, and he blames your exposure to foreign energy for it. One of the symptoms he suggested to be possible was that the body stops aging, and that seems to be the case. Scourge was shorter than I remember Sonic being as well.”

“How bad can it be?” She asked.
“We don’t know. According to him, it could be anything from nothing but your colours altering, to as much as massive hemorrhaging or even death. Luckily, it doesn’t seem to have gone that far with you.”
“Right... will I recover, or is my body like this forever?”
“I don’t know. You’ll have to ask him when you arrive there.”
“Yeah.”


***

An hour later, Fiona opened up her Warp Ring, and walked towards it with Nic. She carried the jar under her arm, and stepped through the portal, into her old home, Knothole village.

Or rather, what was left of it. The entire area was empty now, save for the mound which Freedom HQ had been dug into. The once-huge trees that had hidden the village were now gone, with little more than a multitude of saplings in their place. The grass looked a lot fresher and newer than it had before, and here and there, the shape of a hut’s foundations could be seen.

“Holy crap...” Fiona muttered. “What happened here?”
“You must’ve been on Moebius or something at the time, but Eggman nuked the whole place.”
“Oh... oh my gods...”

***

Inside Freedom HQ, the Freedom Fighters were still in the midst of their party. Most of them were laughing at the fact that, for someone famed for his agility and quick feet, Sonic was an absolutely terrible dancer, and it was only a combination of luck and her own nimble movements that Sally had avoided many a crushed toe.

“I think I’ve got it this time!” The blue blur announced.
“Sonic, please, stop trying before you embarrass yourself.” Tails chuckled. “Well, any more than you already have.”
“No way, Tails. Sonic the Hedgehog never gives up!”
“Seriously, Sugah-Hog. Even Ah can do better than that. And Ah’m a little... clunky.” Bunnie added.
“Silence, non-believer! I will master this, or my name isn’t Sonic the Hedgehog!”
“Sweetie, isn’t your name-” Sally began.
“We do not talk about that. I had it legally changed. My name is Sonic. Period.”

“Um...” Nicole cut in. “Not to spoil everything, but I just detected Warp Ring activity directly outside. And it isn’t Knuckles.”
“Darn.” Amy sighed. “Guess we’d better put proceedings on hold.”
“No, you keep having fun. We’ll go and see what the situation is.” Sally said, leading Sonic away. “The dancefloor is safe to use now.”


The young couple linked arms, and headed out of the door, walking towards the interlopers. Needless to say, they weren’t expecting to see Nic comforting a rather nervous-looking Fiona.

“What are you two doing here?” Sally demanded, glaring at them, particularly Fiona.

“I work for G.U.N. now.” Nic glared back protectively, but Fiona put the urn on the ground, and stepped around her friend.

“Things have changed with me.” She said quietly, little more than a whisper. “I found out what everyone else already knew... Scourge was cheating on me, and using me, and my whole life for the past five years has been a lie. So I decided to try and make things better, to atone for my fuckups, and start over. So... I’m here to turn myself in, on one condition: No prison. Claustrophobia and all.”

The hedgehog and squirrel looked at each other, and shrugged.
“Yeah, okay.” Sonic nodded.
“What’s in the jar?”
“It contains a powerful... thing... called the Goddess’ Soul. We decided to make sure it ended up in the right hands, after Finitevus hired the Destructix to get it, and I thought Tails’ uncle could do it.”
“We’ll make sure it gets to him, once we ascertain that it’s safe.” Sally said.
“What happened to the other Destructix?”
“Shadow beat up Scourge, Rouge took out Predator, that robot guy defeated Simian, and I convinced Lightning and Frog to come quietly. Frog’s in a padded cell, but Lightning seems to be trying to decide what to do with himself.”

“I see. Well, we should probably inform the others that you’re back, and repentant and all.” Sonic said.
“Yeah.” Fiona nodded. “Can Nic come too?”
“I guess.” Sally shrugged.
“We were having a party to celebrate deroboticizing Sally, so they might not be pleased at the interruption.”
“They weren’t going to b- wait, what? You got turned into a bot?”
“It was that or let half of Mobius get it.” Sally sighed. “In hindsight, I was too rash, too desperate to fix it, and I could probably have done better by listening to Nicole, and I paid the price. The sick bastard weaponized me, while I was conscious, and Nicole had to cheat and use a machine that shouldn’t exist yet to change me back.”
“That’s horrible.”


Carrying the jar meant that Fiona’s hands were full, something that, in hindsight, she didn’t really want when entering a room full of the Freedom Fighters that she betrayed. Unsurprisingly, she immediately found herself diving to avoid a strike from Amy, dropping the urn by mistake. She scrabbled to get to her feet, and looked over her shoulder to see that Nic was pressing down on the hammerhead with her foot, stopping Amy from lifting it.

“Leave my sister alone.” Nic growled.
“Ames, relax.” Sonic said. “She’s had a change of heart, and she’s here to turn herself in.”
“And I don’t need my skull cracked open added to my list of problems.”  Fiona sighed, looking around for the urn.

“Here.” Said a gentle, smooth, calm voice asked her. She looked up to see the urn, being held out to her by a tall, golden-furred fox, with burning blue eyes,  broad shoulders, thick fur on his chest and head, and, most notably, two tails.

“T-Tails?”
“Yeah?”
“You’re looking... er... different.”
“Thanks.” He smiled, showing his sharp, white teeth, as he handed the urn back to Fiona.
“Th-thank you...”
“You’re welcome.” Tails said, before walking back to his couch. She watched him go, silently cursing her hormones as she did so.


***

That evening, the urn was placed in a vault, ready for Merlin Prower’s arrival to pick it up. Nic had returned to the G.U.N base, while Fiona had been placed under Nicole’s watchful eye.

However, Fiona’s dropping of the jar earlier had not left it undamaged. A crack in it started to glow from within, as a small, wispy flame forced its way out. It twisted, then floated away, heading for the palace.
And then Fiona's hormones screwed her over.

So yeah, this is how Shadow will fight in my writing from now on. Continuous teleport spam and punishing blows lead to a very painful, hard-to-avoid defeat.

Also, Lightning/Nic shiptease incoming. It's small now, but it'll be more blatant next time.

And since this is me, Chaos/Anarchy poisoning is referenced. It made Fiona and Scourge short!

Sonic can't dance, because I'm trying to make him less "perfect", or whatever you call an asshole who has protagonist-centred morality up the wazoo.

And yes, more Tails/Fiona shipping. What did you expect?

Also, finally, the mysterious possessor shows its face, or lack thereof.

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Bandincorperated's avatar
This was good, although I think scourge should've gotten at least a couple hits in.  I am no fan of him, I just think that would be a little more realistic.