~ Fantasia Down: Darkness of Eternity ~

By Dib07

Disclaimer: Sonic and Shadow belong to SEGA. This story is purely for fun. The idea however, is mine.

Rating: T

Foreword:

Right, now that you have got thus far, there are some rules I need to lay down first about Fantasia Down. 'Forerunners' is a term relating to humans. In the Archie comics this rules applies to the term 'overlanders.' Well, mine is the same.

Sonic and Shadow's characters may differ from the mainstream of their games and cartoon series. This is because I have given them room to grow and develop, unlike Sega. Also, I make my characters realistic where a wound can kill. I do NOT make heroes so that they can be stupidly powerful and unrealistic. Also, Shadow's size differs to Sonic. Shadow is a lot bigger, both in muscle structure and bone length.

Thank you for reading.

Last note: Those of you who wish for a Sonadow fic, let me know. I am open to suggestion. Other than that I shall proceed with thier relationship as purely platonic.

/

Eternal: adjective 1 lasting or existing forever. 2 valid for all time: eternal truths.

Derivatives: eternally adverb

Origin: Latin; aeternalis

'Dark will thy doom be, darker still.'

Alp's Vision - Lord Byron

Chapter one : A Sudden Change

It was quite amazing, and startling as well. As the two of them looked left and right, expecting something normal to occur, something numbly expectant like waking from a dream, it never happened. They remained on the dull grassy bank with a chilling wind lapping playfully at their fur.

"Well, Shades, you've done it again."

Shadow's mouth was shut tightly and he stood up straight, keen eyes looking out blankly across the unfamiliar, unrecognizable landscape. "You know Mobius." He said at last, tolerating no more nonsense. No more things of unexplainable origin. "Do you know this place?"

Sonic heard his tension. His stress. It made his back quills reflexively tighten defensively. He turned himself and didn't stand. He felt too weak and battered. "No." Hoping his simple answer would satisfy his black comrade. "No I do not."

But so what? He thought sparingly, we're safe, aren't we? Someplace - new? Why should it matter?

Shadow obviously wasn't thinking along the same lines. "I don't like this." He started to move off. Taking long, striding steps, arms folded like red lipped iron across his affronted profile. Eyes hard and mean. All the while looking precisely for something he'd know. Something not out of place.

Ardently worried and grim with anxiety at last, Sonic wobbled to his feet and pounced his gaze around, to and fro. The world opened out welcomingly enough. Yet the sun shone down hard and dire upon them as if its warmth, its very light was now cranked and frosty with age. The valleys, conferred with dimple, dark forests, swollen with bleak color. Mist rose from the east from what could have been a dank pond or a marsh.

"Look, no birds." Shadow started again as he himself peered upward, mentally wishing upon heaving flocks of creatures. The skies were empty and dry, as if the very clouds were made out of acrid cotton.

There was no sign of anything. Anywhere.

"When you said you used chaos control, coupled with the passage of time, were you aware of time moving forwards, or back?" Sonic presently asked, admiring the gold ring still clasped lovingly around his wrist like a clamp.

Shadow spat as if it were an accusation. "How was I supposed to know, dummy? I had to act, didn't I? It's me that does everything around here anyway while you sit and wait for it all to happen while you suck your thumb!"

"I was only asking."

Shadow tightened his shoulders and looked ready to charge away into one of his sulky bursts of outrage. This time however he clenched himself still until the frustration and indignation passed. With a clearer head he kept pacing the scenery with his sight until his feet started taking him wherever they pleased.

Less inclined to follow, Sonic sat back down on the cold grass again, musing silently. He hadn't been able to remember much. Just the splitting of noise and color. The spinning sensation of no gravity. Not knowing which way was up or down. Nor even how long they had been travelling for - in the sense of warp speed or not. Maybe they had really gone nowhere. And if that were so, where was everybody else?

A sense of exploration still whizzed wholly in his body like an untamable instinct. He stood up and began moving towards a sharp dune of rock on his left side, the opposite way Shadow had apparently - decisively taken.

Great old willows, with their dropping branches like overhanging curtains, glimmered upon the outer workings of the rock where weeds poked out of cracks in green splurges of color. Climbing the rock he squatted atop it and looked out, ears perked high and strong. There was not a sound that he could catch. No birds. Shadow was still correct on that one. No insects either. And the languid chill in the land foretold no summer or a gentle, pleasant spring. Autumn? Then where was the migrating birds?

And another thing. Why were the forests beyond on the horizon so dark and foreboding? Trees were always a gentle, natural source of food and refuge. They were homes. Guardians. Life. The ones here however, evicted some kind of misplacement. As if they drew on hurt and pain rather than soothed and succored it.

Mountains choked the southern line of trees. Mountains were natural too. Mobius was filled with their hard fortifications and dizzying splay of height and majestic strength.

"I'll wait until it gets dark." Sonic muttered faintly, "then I can read the stars and know exactly where we are."

This little bit of reliable knowledge made him feel sturdier and more relaxed. But while the sun was still twinkling in couth hues, he moved on further, pushing through the long, sharp grass and stumbling upon strange, alien flowers and plants. If this was truly Mobius, than he was on a continent he had never been to before. In his earlier days he had raced across the whole world discovering and exploring. He avoided the ocean of course, and any rivers he came across, but on the whole he had searched and enjoyed the world twice over. Maybe Shadow had simply - innocently warped them to a foreign land on Mobius in their present time.

"I don't get it." He jumped at Shadow's voice as the elder hedgehog stood gruffly behind him. He had climbed the rock and had gone after him without making a sound. He would make a nasty enemy any day. "I did something. I must have. But with now only one emerald, where have the rest gone?"

"Somewhere. They always do. I say we wait until dark when the stars are out. What about the Ark? Can you see that, even now in the daytime?"

The Ark was always plainly visible, despite time or season, darkness or light. Its outer shell, its arduous sheathing, never went unnoticed. Whether you wanted to see it blotted against the sky like a stillborn sun or not. Shadow looked. The sky was blank and offered up no answers.

Shadow hissed and started to run, nose held high as he scoured the heavens with sudden misgiving.

Sonic followed as fast as he could, though his sore muscles and ripe bruises only battered him back down into a meek trot worthy of a snail's pace. He instead warily regarded Shadow peel off into the distance, and even now his stance looked positively fuming with uncharted menace.

Sonic gazed upward, raising his hand to block the sun's rays from hurting his eyes. "Huh. No Ark."

Maybe its behind a few clouds.

But he knew deep down that it wasn't yet hope kept him searching nonetheless.

Upon fastening his eyes back down to the sordid plains that were rumpled with dark grass and leaves, he spied Shadow racing back in broad, graceful strokes of his hover boots. The streaks of light tearing up at his heels made the brazen sun seem even more dry and rough.

"It's gone." He heard him cry before he had even reached him again. "The Ark - it's gone. It's not there!" For once a new kind of frozen panic had clouded Shadow's eyes and countenance.

"Maybe we're on the other side of Mobius." Considered Sonic.

"Oh I don't know." Shadow looked truly lost. "Maybe. If that is so, we'll have to run and travel until we do see it. Then - then I'll know - I'll see -"

"See what?"

"See that it's there! That not everything we used to know is gone!"

They did indeed travel. Lightly through the wan day and saw nothing. No other animals. No forerunners for that matter or birds. The wind rocked and creaked through the dry, cackling forests and the sun warmed rivers and streams where fish frolicked like butterflies. But their grey skin was hard and sharp with bristly spines and since they were not particularly hungry, they pressed on.

When the sun began to descend into a lathering afternoon, midges appeared in puffs of dense, moving clouds. Their presence brought some normality back to the hedgehogs.

"What if we're stranded in another time zone?" Sonic asked as he tossed a white stone back and forth between his busy hands. "Or we've excelled at the use of the emeralds and gone further than we're supposed to?"

"Nonsense." Shadow grimaced, not even glaring at him. "The Ark will be in the sky soon. And we may have to cross an ocean to leave this strange place and go back home. But until then do not mention time or emeralds again!"

"Okay, okay!"

Despite the blandness of the sun that didn't cherish them with warmth, they got too hot in their wanderings and lazed in the shadows of a little woodland out skirting a wild lush grassland. With nothing to eat the grass (or so it seemed) it seemed to grow in vast quantities and to great heights. Sometimes it dwarfed them but they liked the cover it brought.

Violet and black butterflies twirled hazardly above them as they rested. In all due honestly they could have kept going for another few hours despite sweating under the sun. However Shadow, much like a strict parent with no sense of fun and mischief, told him that they should slow it down a little and continue when the sun was lower. When it was cooler. But Sonic - as he turned to lay on his side in the jungle of grass, knew it was because of him. His bruises and hurting body. He had managed to keep the pace, refusing to let any amount of pain hitch him up. Yet Shadow saw straight through his struggles and ordered a long repose for the afternoon.

Shadow did not sleep. Despite no signs of danger, no signs in fact of anything, the hedgehog kept a constant, vigilant eye around them. Sonic had already told him not to bother. And got ignored. So choosing not to worry, Sonic slept dozily. Twitching his ear whenever a butterfly landed on it or scratching his rump when the grass blades teased his fur.

It was a nice day. He thought. Despite their situation and not having a clue where they were.

TBC

Please R & R!