Chapter 11—Wolves at the Door

When peace like a river

Attendeth my way

When sorrows like sea billows roll;

Whatever my lot

Thou hast taught me to say,

“It is well, it is well with my soul!”

--It is Well with my Soul, Horatio G. Spafford

Rescue me from my enemies, O God. Protect me from those who have come to destroy me.—Psalms 59:1

Malicious witnesses testify against me. They accuse me of crimes I know nothing about.—Psalms 35:11

Scourge the Hedgehog was not pleased with his first assignment.

I mean, come on! He was the second-fastest thing alive—the fastest, after Lucifer lived up to his promise and gave him the power to kill Sonic—and all that pompous dragon can think for him to do is to sneak around slowly on some Chaos-forsaken island looking for some twit who spends his time guarding a big rock?

And why is he looking for said twit? Because for some reason, that dragon thinks he’s one of Sonic’s weak points. That in itself was insulting; that some loser on an island who—according to Mephiles—has never even MET Sonic is a bigger threat to him than Scourge the Hedgehog!

If he wasn’t sure that Lucifer could give him what he wanted, Scourge would have told him where he could shove this job and walked away.

The hedgehog growled deep within his chest as he pushed away thick undergrowth in an attempt to pass. Somehow he lost his grip on the branches; they snapped back and hit him across the face so hard he literally fell on his back, where he just laid for awhile, waiting for the ability to draw in a big enough breath so he could just cuss out the universe for awhile.

Finally, the hedgehog managed to sit up and touch his throbbing cheek. He felt something wet and withdrew his hand, looking at it crossly. Red.

Great. With his luck, that was gonna scar.

Muttering some unwholesome things beneath his breath, Scourge angrily stood and stomped further into the thicket, completely unaware of the two deep purple eyes that watched his every move.

Sonic was totally psyched. Thanks to his victory message, 15 people had decided to become King’s Citizens. That, was beyond cool.

But now it was over and he was once again back at that training ground, standing at that stupid wall and wondering if today, perhaps, it would show him mercy and allow him to scale it and not feel half-dead afterwards.

Thirty minutes later, as his arms burned and his hands swelled while he desperately tried to free his leg from where it had somehow become so entangled in the rope it could no longer be seen, preventing him from moving forward or backwards, Sonic realized it was just not to be.

Stupid wall!

Scourge finally made it through the thicket and into a huge clearing with some sort of ruins in it. He looked around, panting with relief—can you believe there had actually been a place where he’d had to scale a stinkin’ CLIFF using nothing but a vine? Honestly, what kind of sick joke was that? Took him the better part of an hour, and his arms were throbbing in a way that did not make him look forward to tomorrow morning—and he scanned the area for the twit Lucifer had wanted him to find.

Great. Just great. All that work, and whoever he was supposed to find didn’t even have the decency to be there!

Unless maybe he was inside that temple-looking place. Shrugging and wincing when the action brought still more pain to his already aching arms, the hedgehog sighed and started up the many steps to the top of the ruins.

There was no more blood in Sonic’s arms. He was sure he had permanently lost all use. He’d finally got the other recruits to stop laughing and realize that his was actually serious and yes, someone could be so hopeless as to get his leg permanently stuck inside a rope while scaling a wall.

But on the bright sight, it wasn’t really his fault. This wall had it in for him for some reason. He didn’t know why; he certainly had said or done nothing to offend it.

Even with five recruits helping him, they still couldn’t get his leg out of that rope. They had had to go get Mighty, the only one around with a sword, and get the armadillo to cut him down.

And I kid you not, when Sonic thanked him, Mighty told him that he owed the institute a new rope!

Now he was sitting inside the mess hall with a plate of food. Not that that did any good; after all, he couldn’t get his arms to lift his own hand, much less the weight of a fork with food on it, to his mouth. And even if he could, his hands were so swollen from clutching that rope that they couldn’t make a fist to hold said fork anyway. He was reduced to looking pathetic and hoping someone would spoon feed him.

In the end, he really didn’t need to try hard to look pathetic; that was coming pretty naturally today. And Amy—bless that woman with her servant’s heart!—kindly offered to feed him. And Shadow, being the nice guy that he is, calmly looked away so that had it not been for the fact that his shoulders were shaking like he was caught in an earthquake, Sonic would never have known that his friend was laughing at his expense.

Of course, we all know that every ounce of blame for this predicament Sonic currently found himself in rested solely on that stupid wall.

Scourge looked around the room, at first disappointed to find that the chamber was devoid of life. Then he noticed something…intriguing…on the far side of the room. It was an extremely large, bright green emerald. Even from this distance, he could feel its power, soothing his aching body. More power than he had ever thought possible.

Enough power to kill Sonic without submitting to Lucifer.

Scourge’s eyes lit up greedily at the thought, and he rushed to the gem with excitement, reaching for it.

“Keep your hands off the Master Emerald!”

The unexpected voice caused Scourge to pause and look up. There was a red echidna with deep purple eyes and spiked gloves glaring at him from the entrance. Scourge idly wondered if this was the twit he was supposed to find, but it didn’t matter. With this emerald, he would not need to listen to Lucifer. Certainly not to this loser!

“Sorry, pal,” Scourge smirked. “Finders keepers, you know.”

With that, Scourge reached out and grabbed the emerald. The echidna cried out in anger and lunged for him, only to stop and shield his eyes as a bright light emerged from the emerald.

That night Commander Jack called a general meeting, as he usually did three times a week. Sonic found that his arms were better; he could now close his hands, although it was painful to do so, and he found that if he really concentrated, he had just enough power over his arms to reach up and half-heartedly scratch his nose. That, I don’t need to remind you, was a great relief to him.

The Commander usually led them in a prayer, sang songs of worship to the King, and gave a brief message on the laws of the King, and then dismissed them to dinner. Sonic always found that he rather enjoyed these meetings, and today was no exception, throbbing arms notwithstanding.

But something was different today, because as the Pastor finished his message, the dove that had helped Shadow find Sonic flew in from the window, a small scroll in its beak.

You could feel the electricity in the room; the dove only brought the King’s messages, and everyone was eager to see what new word was being brought. The Commander Jack reached for it, however, it flew away from his reach.

This act brought surprised and confused murmurings amongst the congregation. If the King’s message wasn’t for the Commander, than who was it for?

The dove flew around the room a few times, until the whisperings ceased and all were simply watching him expectantly, then it flew down and landed—upon Shadow’s shoulders. With a satisfied coo, the dove dropped the message into the startled hedgehog’s lap.

“M-me?” Shadow whispered, his eyes wide. The dove cooed again and seemed to bob its head up and down.

“Shadow,” Commander Jack called to him. “Would you please read to us the message the King has sent you?”

Shadow nodded, still seeming to be shocked, and he stood, clutching the message tightly as if he would lose it should he lessen his grip even for a fraction of a second. The dove never left his shoulder for a second, softly cooing as if to let everyone know it felt quite comfortable perched on Shadow’s shoulder.

The way his hands were trembling, it took a while for the ebony hedgehog opened the scroll. But finally he had opened it and read the message. It was short, only three words.

Shadow gasped and paled as he blurted out, “Feed My sheep.”

The POWER!!! It was even more incredible than Scourge had ever imagined! It coursed through his veins, giving him more and more energy. He felt stronger, better, faster, than he ever had in his whole life. Images flashed through his head; abilities that were unheard of but that he knew that he could not accomplish. Oh, the things he could do with this power!

He giggled as yet another new ability opened to him in his mind, this one more promising that any before. The emerald disappeared; but it was not important. It had no more power. Now he had the power. He had the emerald. He WAS the emerald!

Scourge glanced down at his body. It was no longer a deep cobalt blue. Now it was as green as the emerald whose power it had taken. Scourge decided he rather liked the coloring. Why shouldn’t he? It was the color of power, after all.

Total, unbeatable, unlimited power.

Forget simply not following Lucifer! He had the power to control that dragon now! And why stop there? After all, Lucifer wasn’t the only powerful being on this planet, no indeed…

But first things first. Before he could take his rightful place as the king of this world, he needed to destroy the one creature who had dared to defy him. Sonic the Hedgehog would die. Slowly and painfully, he would die.

With a wicked smirk as he thought of the things he would do to his hated foe, Scourge calmly spoke. “Chaos Control.”

All of Scourge’s musings took less than a minute to take place; indeed, a few fractions of a second after touching the Master Emerald he was Chaos Controlling away. All Knuckles the Echidna knew, is at one second, the Emerald chamber was flashing a brilliant white, and the next, the Emerald and the thief were gone without a trace.

“NO!!!” Knuckles yelped, desperately looking around. How could the thief have escaped? He was standing right in front of the only exit! There was no way the thief could have gotten around him!

The guardian fell to his knees, knowing that he had failed in his most important task. The emerald was gone, and he had no way of getting it back.

“Oh, dear.”

Knuckles was much too despondant to do anything about this new stranger who had come up behind him save look at the interloper. He was a black hedgehog with grey highlights in his quills, lime green eyes, and no mouth. He was wearing black armor with the symbol of a dragon upon it.

“Who are you?” Knuckles asked.

“My name is Mephiles. I am a servant of Lucifer, the Dragon of Light,” Mephiles replied, his voice soft and smooth. “I had hoped I would arrive in time to protect your emerald, young echidna, but I see I my efforts have been in vain.”

“The Master Emerald is gone,” Knuckles muttered in grief. “The blue hedgehog stole it, right in front of me!”

“Blue hedgehog?” Mephiles sounded thoughtful. “Did he have green eyes?”

Knuckles frowned at Mephiles. “Yes, he did. Do you know him?”

“Yes, I do,” Mephiles replied. “He is a servant of an evil tyrant who no doubt wishes to use the emerald’s power for wicked purposes. I and my liege have been fighting this menace for years. If you would but join us, my lord Lucifer would be most pleased to help you recover your Emerald.”

Hope blossomed within Knuckles once again; if this man knew who the thief was he could lead Knuckles right to him! He could reclaim the Master Emerald and keep its power from being abused. The thrilled echidna nodded his agreement.

“One last thing, Mephiles,” Knuckles requested. “What is the name of the thief who did this?”

Mephiles looked sympathetic. He was quite skilled at deceit, after all. “His name,” he said gravelly, “Is Sonic the Hedgehog.”

Meanwhile, hundreds of miles away from Angel Island and currently unaware that he was being targeted and slandered, Sonic the Hedgehog sat next to Amy Rose long after the meeting had been dismissed, silently watching Shadow and Commander Jack talk.

“The message was obviously meant for someone else,” Shadow insisted. “The dove made a mistake.”

“Neither the King nor the dove makes mistakes, Shadow,” Commander Jack replied.

“Yeah, Shads, and even if there was a chance the message might have gotten to the wrong hands, well, the fact that that bird won’t leave your shoulder for the world kinda seems to prove that he’s got the right guy,” Sonic hastened to add.

Shadow looked over to his shoulder to where the dove have him what seemed to be a pleased nod and a gentle coo. Then the dove nestled in Shadow’s shoulder, showing that it wasn’t leaving any time soon. Shadow sighed.

“Why me?” he asked, sounding even more bewildered. “Of all the people here, why does He pick me to become a Commander?”

“It’s not for us to decide why the King does what he does. We simply trust that He knows what He’s doing,” Commander Jack replied. “The only question that’s important is, will you agree to do as He asks?”

Shadow’s eyes widened. “I—o-of course! I…how could I possibly tell Him no? After everything He’s done for me…”

The dove gave a triumphant cry and for the first time in three hours, flew off of Shadow’s shoulder. It flew over the ebony hedgehog’s head a few times, then, cooing once more, fluttered out a window.

“Man,” Sonic muttered. “What is up with that bird?”

Commander Jack chuckled and gave the window a knowing glance, then he turned back to Shadow. “Come with me,” he said. “For now, it would be best for you to learn under my guidance so that when the time is right, you will be able to accept your position.”

“Yes, sir,” Shadow replied softly.

Mephiles sighed with relief. For once, Lucifer was actually pleased with him.

“At least I know you can do something right,” the dragon chuckled from the cave as the two looked down into their camp where Knuckles was being fitted for armor. “You always did have a knack for deceit.”

Mephiles nodded slightly. “I suppose I am in my element when I use other’s emotions to gain what I desire,” he admitted.

“The hedgehog was most useful, was he not?” Lucifer chuckled. “Yes, quite effective at getting me the echidna for the coming battle.”

“What’s so great about this echidna, anyway?” Mephiles dared to ask, as Lucifer was in a very good mood today.

“Oh, Mephiles, if you only knew the magnitude of what he represents! Everything hinges on the death of the blue hedgehog. Without him, the black one can be shamed to silence, and the girl can be deceived to stillness. He is an encourager…he is here to see to it that they complete their objectives for this world.”

Mephiles’ mind whirled. “Sonic is not of this world?”

“Of course not, you dummy! His temporary presence is to strengthen their faith and encourage them to do what the King asks of them, then he is to leave. But if I destroy him here, now…not only will I strike a blow against the King in this world, but also in the other! For if Sonic the Hedgehog dies here…” Cold, yellow eyes peered from the darkness. “Then Sonic the Hedgehog cannot do what the King wills him to do in his own world. And the victory I will obtain will be astronomical.”