ARAAT2: Eclipse - Part 2

~~~

A Rose And A Thorn 2: Eclipse

Co-Written by Harley Quinn hyenaholic and Froggy22651

~~~

Froggy: Now thanks to AFF being an insufferable bitch, this is the second part of A Rose And A Thorn 2. To understand, you MUST read the first part of the story, which is currently in the Read Only Archives.

Harley: We own Eclipse, and the Colonel. The rest of the characters are copyright to Sega.

Froggy: We’d like to remind you that at many times during this fanfic, Shadow will be acting Out Of Character. It’s intentional. As you saw in the summary, there are strong descriptions of torture in this fanfic. Very strong. You’re going to squirm. If you don't want to squirm like hell, stop reading this story now and - oh, wait, Chapter 6 was pretty squirmy too.

Harley: Well from here it gets much, much worse. Much. Lots. Horrible. Not squicky, but it's going to HURT.

~~~

Chapter Seven: Forgotten Family

Shadow blinked his eyes slowly, his pain-fogged brain struggling to form solid thoughts. He had lost track of time... had it been a day? A week? A month? There was no way to tell; everything blurred together. Had the shocks stopped, or had he simply grown numb to them? He couldn't tell. The scientists had left it on automatic as they had left for the night, and there had been nobody to even scream at. They were returning now though. The only one he recognised was the Professor. And the Colonel followed after him.

"Good morning, Project Shadow," he said amicably, as the scientists returned to work, "I trust you slept well?"

Did he sleep at all? Maybe he’d passed out for a while. He didn't know any more, "Go… to hell..."

"I see... well, I think you'd like to know that most of your earlier memories have been retrieved. The doctors are currently extracting your 50 years of stasis. I suppose from my employees you may have gathered that I would have your memories wiped..." the Colonel smiled thinly, "No. I want you to remember every moment of this."

"Well, isn’t that just peachy..." Shadow whispered painfully, trying to focus his eyes on the GUN officer. His vision kept blurring.

The Colonel's cold, grey eyes watched him back, "I despise you and your 'furry' companions. Freaks and aliens, disgusting creatures barely worthy of life and certainly not worthy of the free will you have somehow been granted. But you have your uses."

"Nice… to be wanted..." His wit didn't have nearly as good an affect with his weak voice and expressions.

"Yes... and as your 'friends' come for you, they will be arrested for trespassing. Although some things are too good to wait for... which is why today I'm deploying troops to collect Miss Blossom."

Shadow growled, "Those 'furry freaks'... will stop you... You can take one of us… but not all. We've saved humanity before… you can't even stop Eggman..."

"Humph," the Colonel didn't look happy at that comment, but changed tack, "Would you like to see your 'son'?" he asked.

Shadow didn't answer. He wasn't going to give the human the satisfaction.

"Turn on the screen," the Colonel ordered the Professor.

The overhead screen turned on, and Shadow saw the grotesque nursery again. Eclipse was crying out loud.

"Eclipse..." he whispered, his eyes watering again, "No! He's just a child! Leave him out of this, you animal!"

The Colonel laughed, "Who's the hypocrite now?" he chuckled, "You are the animal, Project Shadow. A savage beast created to kill."

Shadow watched as Eclipse was forced to watch a gruesome horror movie, "You don't see me brainwashing children or electrifying people to examine how they twitch!" he shouted, his strength and outrage returning.

"So you're sick of mere electrocution?" the Colonel beckoned over a soldier, "You have five minutes," The soldier stepped forward and hit Shadow so hard that his lip split, "Continue," the Colonel's voice was vague through a haze of pain.

Shadow blinked away the stars in his vision and spat out some of the blood in his mouth, “Bastard…"

"Careful, Project Shadow," he could just hear the Colonel speak, "My men don't have the same self restraint that I have."

Several more punches landed around Shadow's body. He was pretty sure that a rib had been cracked with one of them. After five minutes of the pain, the soldier stepped aside, "Don't get cocky, Project Shadow," the Colonel stepped forward. He held up the diamond ring again, "You may yet survive to give this to Miss Blossom."

Shadow's eyes focused on the ring, the symbol of his undying love for Amy. The Colonel just dangled it in front of him to taunt him with it. How could they just toy with his life like that? "Professor Gerald was right about you humans... I should have killed you all like he wanted..."

"And I'm very grateful to you for choosing to do otherwise," the Colonel answered calmly.

Shadow growled and glared dangerously at the officer, "I'm considering finishing the job once I'm free from this place."

"Hmmm... would your mate want the entire planet destroyed?" asked the Colonel. Shadow was bluffing, and the Colonel knew it. He couldn't destroy the planet, not after he had grown so attached to the people who lived on it, "We've already analysed some of your earlier memories, Project Shadow," the Colonel told him, "Some very, very interesting things there. Gerald was keeping quite a lot of things from us, and now we know what they were."

Shadow remained silent.

"Do you remember the Artificial Chaos Projects?" he asked, "Or his investigations into the Master Emerald? The 'good doctor' created things with the sole purpose of destroying you."

Shadow blinked. He didn't know what the Colonel was talking about, and he couldn't recall anything about a project to destroy him.

"Of course you wouldn't... Project: Mirage and Ashura remain in stasis aboard the ARK. Soon enough troops will be deployed to the ARK again, and we will find them."

Ashura? Mirage? What the hell was the Colonel talking about? "You're lying to me..."

The Colonel pressed a button. The image of a cat came up on the view screen. At least, she was mostly a cat, with thick black fur and a bushy tail that forked at the end with a red tip. Three Power Rings were banded around it tightly. She wore a white vest with a red lining, and shoes that were almost identical to his own, except without jets. She wore no gloves, presumably because her long claws would have shredded them.

But Shadow also saw the wild red eyes, so like his own, and long, furry quills that kinked up at the very end, with red strips in predictable places. She also had a bare muzzle, and a large white patch of fur over her breasts. Mostly cat, but partly hedgehog.

"Project: Mirage," the Colonel explained.

Shadow narrowed his eyes and closely examined the image of the feline. A strange feeling of familiarity grew inside Shadow... as well as a cold, unsteady feeling in his stomach.

The view screen changed again, and another image flicked up. A hedgehog that looked remarkably like Sonic, except that its spikes were as green as grass, and its eyes glowed blue from edge to edge like the sea. It looked at Shadow, and turned away again, laughing softly.

"And Ashura," the Colonel explained.

"You're lying. Trying to scare me. It won't work," Shadow declared, "I am the Ultimate Lifeform."

The view screen changed and ‘Project Mirage’ was back. She was lying face down on the floor, bleeding from the shoulder, "Get... in the fucking pod... asswipe..." she hissed.

“I'm not leaving you behind!”

The Colonel interupted the short movie, "Don't worry, we'll find it and... test it. The ARK is large, but it is not infinite."

Shadow snarled. He didn't know the feline, but he didn't want GUN to get their hands on her just out of general principle.

"As for Ashura... we have no details on that. Only its emotional instability. It was apparently insane upon awakening, but of course an idiot like Gerald would never destroy it. We shall."

Shadow decided to make it a high priority to get to ARK once he was freed. If he was freed. Maybe he could find and free those two other experiments before GUN did. Anything he could do to disrupt their plans appealed to him now, "You are dealing with powers you cannot comprehend… When man first tampered with fire, he was burned… the same fate will befall you…"

"You don't understand yourself," the Colonel answered, "They were created with GUN's money and resources, as were you. Therefore GUN owns you all. Gentlemen, you may continue," he told the scientists.

The Colonel left the room, taking the soldiers with him and leaving Shadow to the attentions of the scientists.

Shadow glared up at the ceiling, his mind more muddled and confused than before. Soon he was to be experiencing more pain again.

"We need to take more samples today," said the Professor, to someone, "Skin, muscle, sperm and bone." A scalpel cut deeply into his leg, and the scientist began to peel some of his skin off.

Shadow twisted and screamed in pain, "Haven't you bastards ever fucking heard of anaesthetic?!"

The Professor ignored him, "Right, that should be enough skin," Shadow watched as a strip of black-and-red skin the length of his hand was passed over him, "Now for some muscle." The scalpel cut deeper.

Shadow screamed louder. His head swam and he became dizzy, but he was determined not to pass out.

Some of his muscle changed hands, "And some bone."

Shadow closed his eyes tightly and tensed his jaw so he wouldn't do something stupid... like bite his own tongue off.

"To think it was once rumoured that Project Shadow was a robot," said a scientist, just as the Professor took a sample of bone, "I think this is conformation."

"Now, sew it back up. We don't want unnecessary blood loss," said the Professor, “It has to stay alive.”

Wasn't that considerate of them? Shadow glared at the scientists as they patched up the leg wound they’d just given him. It would make escaping even more difficult... if it wasn’t impossible already…

"It seems to have grown used to the memory scanner."

"Maybe it's just not reacting any more."

"Test it by increasing the voltage."

Shadow moaned as another blast of electrical energy shot through him. It was agonising before, but it felt indescribable now. He was afraid that if they increased the voltage anymore that he would burst into flames. Yes… he was afraid…

"Its muscles appear to have been shocked. If it was released now, it wouldn't be able to stand, much less fight," said someone.

"From the electricity, or from remaining in this position for so long?"

"A combination," the Professor answered.

"Yeah, I'm really starting to cramp up here..." Shadow said tiredly.

"Good," the Professor said, absent-mindedly, "Exactly as expected."

"Hey, I'm not going anywhere," Shadow said quietly, "Could you please let me up so I could stretch and go to the bathroom? I've been holding it for a while here..."

"You may release it at will and it will be cleaned up when we have the time," the Professor was too absorbed in his notes to refer to Shadow in the third person at the moment.

In truth, Shadow had been hoping the professor would at some point stand where he could release right onto the bastard, but no such luck. Sighing miserably, he let it go, urinating onto the floor. It was so damn humiliating. He couldn't recall ever being so embarrassed. Yeah, this had to qualify as some form of rape. The scientists had someone in to clean it up surprisingly quickly, and then continued with their degrading work.

"What do you plan to do with it once the memory scanning is complete anyway, Professor?" one of the scientists asked.

"There are some vaccines that are close to completion," the Professor replied, "We have to test them on it before we can try them on its progeny."

"Such as?"

"The common cold. We've almost licked that one. Apart from the side-effects."

"What side-effects?"

Shadow listened intently

"Well, let's see... stomach cramps... nausea... severe migraines... hot and cold running fevers and hallucinations of varying strengths were the last recorded side-effects. I'm almost certain we've dealt with most of them though."

Oh wonderful... They were going to use him to test out new drugs? That could be very bad for him... if the electrocution wasn’t already bad enough.

"If the hallucinations are still an active side-effect, they could affect the memory scanner's results."

"Which is exactly why I wanted that gotten over with as quickly as possible."

The black and red hedgehog was starting to give up on talking to them. Eggman's robots were better at conversation than them. Maybe he didn't want to know what they were doing to him.

"And the memories are coming thick and fast now that we're past the fifty years of stasis."

That meant they would be looking at his relationship with Amy soon enough. The thought sickened him. It was his life, not theirs, dammit!

Shadow screamed again, not in pain, but in raw despair.

~~~

Harley: Geez, we’re bastards, aren’t we?

Froggy: Oh yeah… Mirage belongs to Harley. You have to ask if you want to use her. Ashura’s a grey area though. He’s a fan-character created by fans to name a palette glitch in Sonic 1. He doesn’t actually officially belong to Sega. Anybody may use him.