Mirror Image

VIII: Shadow Play

"No-one tells me what to do, Knux," said Sonic, standing calmly next to Shadow, his emerald eyes moving up and down Shadow's body, "right now, I feel like doing this." Sonic put his hands around Shadow's waist, turning the dark hedgehog to face him. Knuckles watched dumbstruck as the two hedgehogs locked lips, eyes closed passionately, slender arms pulling each other's bodies together. Knuckles staggered to his feet, horrified by the display in front of him.

"You're sick, Sonic! This... monster's corrupted you," he said, pointing at Shadow, "You need to get away from him, right now." Sonic turned to face him, still held in Shadow's arms. His face oozed contempt.

"Fuck off!" he spat, "I'm staying with Shadow. The rest of you can just kill yourselves for all I care."

Knuckles fury burned stronger than ever. He wanted to leap forward and smash Sonic's filthy mouth out through the back of his head. But he began to feel woozy from the gushing blood barely held back by his glove. Giving Sonic one last hateful look, he turned on his heel and staggered back in the direction he had come.

"This isn't over, Sonic!" he called over his shoulder.

"Yeah, I think it just might be!" shouted Sonic from behind him. Knuckles did his best to remain upright, when all his body wanted to do was collapse to the ground. The pain in his snout, sharp and biting, became a dull throb compared to the pain in his heart. The Sonic he knew and respected, irritating ego aside, had died, seemingly overnight. In his place, Knuckles saw only the selfish jerk he had always feared Sonic could become but for the love for his friends.

Beside him, three excited schoolboys pointed and shouted, oblivious to Knuckles' injuries.

"Hey, look!" squealed a silver wolf cub, "it's Sonic the Hedgehog!"

"No," said Knuckles in a deep funk, garnering confused looks from the boys, "It isn't. Not anymore."

~o~

From the upstairs of Rouge's house, the muffled sounds of tuneless singing echoed through the ceiling, barely masked by the drumroll sound of water. Shadow sat on one end of the sofa, drumming his fingers in irritation, ears twitching in response to the caterwauling from above. Sonic had decided to take advantage of Rouge's shower, hoping to clean the dirt, blood and other such things from his fur. Shadow hadn't exactly given his permission; he didn't think Sonic would be the sort not to leave the bathroom in total disarray, which he knew would annoy Rouge's borderline compulsive habits. But Sonic had run off without waiting to be told, as he always did.

In his free hand, Shadow idly passed the small locket between his fingers. By accident, the catch popped open, and Shadow beheld Maria's smiling face, faded through time. In his heart he felt a pang, a tightness he had felt time and again over the past few days. Shadow struggled with the confusion in his brain; this was the same feeling he got whenever Sonic seemed vulnerable.

"Hi Maria," he said quietly, "it's Shadow. How have you been?" Shadow always began his "conversations" with Maria's picture this way. He knew how stupid it must sound; did he really expect the picture to talk back to him? Shadow sighed heavily, feeling like the girl knew what he was about to say, and that her eyes were judging him. But he felt he had discovered so much about himself and about Sonic recently, he couldn't not tell her.

"I thought I hated him, Maria," he said, "I made a promise to you to keep this world safe, to make its people happy, but I found that he had taken that role from me. The people loved him, he saved their lives almost every day. Worst of all, he treated it like a joke, or a game! Nothing mattered to him, he didn't understand what it means to... to love someone like I loved you," Shadow felt his eyes grow heavy, his heart constricted with sadness, "but I've seen a new side to Sonic, Maria. I realise now, he loves Tails more than he loves himself, and I've seen him become... vulnerable." There was that word again, the one that gnawed at Shadow's thoughts, made him question his outlook on Sonic.