The Tempest Within (Specter's backstory)
Specter's past is a dark, painful mess. Result of an experiment in quantum cloning gone awry, Specter came into the world alone, undesired, and undignified. He was kept in stasis and studied by GUN scientists for years after the military ransacked the lab he was created in, before eventually being released, reluctantly, to a government-approved foster home. Specter knew from the beginning that, for some reason, he didn't belong. Though he knew nothing about himself and how he'd come into existence, something drove the young hedgehog to flee into the night and make his own way in the world. His first contact with residual energy from a damaged Chaos Drive sparked his sleeping powers to life, giving him the ability to fly at will and summon simple elemental magic energies. The same unknown force that led the yet-nameless hedgehog child away from what little he'd known in his life eventually brought him, after many years on the run, to the shores of a small island... an island with a fierce robotic guardian, whose assault he only barely survived.
Following that leading inclination in the back of his mind, the hedgehog wandered down a tunnel into the dark caverns of the island. It was there, littered with the debris of battle and the skeletal corpses of GUN soldiers, that he uncovered a vast laboratory... and the truth. This is a page from the journal he kept during this time in which he elucidates, in his own words, the story of that early period in his life.
{I do not remember my first moments with any depth of clarity. My world was a transparent capsule slightly larger than my body, filled with strange green liquid, and the green-tinted room beyond it. I knew nothing of who I was, how I had come to be, or of the events that had proceeded my beginning. From time to time I saw a human, an old man by appearance with graying hair, a beard and mustache, enter the dark room. He would look at me occasionally, but mostly spent his time working at the room’s computers. I knew nothing of speech; the man never spoke whenever I did see him, and I had no reason or understanding to speak, assuming I even could then. My mind, my dreams, my thoughts were a sea of confusion within me, but all I could do was float amid my liquid sustenance in silence. I was too weak to have broken free, too ignorant to fathom how. I was utterly alone...
I was later to learn the truth. The man was a scientist, named Issac Torrasu, who had been the close friend of another man named Gerald Robotnick during the latter’s lifetime. I was the result of one of Torrasu’s many experiments aimed at helping him avenge Gerald's unmerciful death. I had been created through a process Torassu called 'quantum cloning', which involved the duplication of the timeline signature of another individual or object. That individual was Shadow the hedgehog, whom I would learn of later. But something had gone wrong in the process that made me: an unknown Other signature became mingled with Shadow’s for reasons unknown to Torassu, and thus I was not the identical copy of Shadow Issac Torrasu had sought to create. I was something else, an unorthodox mixing of two individuals. I was unique...
And so, Issac Torrasu was studying me, trying to understand what had happened. But he would not get far. The military found him and killed him; it was they who had given him the four Chaos Emeralds which powered the machine that created me, and it was they Torassu sought to punish. They took the Emeralds, and myself, but before they could secure Torrasu’s lab something attacked them and killed many of them. I had, at the time, no knowledge of what it was that slaughtered them so brutally; by then my transparent capsule and myself had been loaded aboard a helicopter and I was beginning to feel the effects of stasis drugs. But I could hear them: the countless screams from just outside could be heard clearly despite the roaring of the vehicle’s engines. I shall never forget...
I know not how long I was in stasis at the military base, but when I at last awoke I met Shadow. I knew it was him because I had often heard his voice in my scattered memories, and had a vague idea before the encounter what he looked like. He released me from the capsule that had held me so long. He tried to ask me questions, but I did not know how to answer him... even though, as he spoke, my mind began to understand speech. In the end I was cast aside as useless, and men with guns escorted me to a place far away. They called it a foster home... a place where cameras watched my every move, where the people taught me to read, write, speak, and do as I was told. I was only a child, a child without any comfort and to whom no one showed any pity, but to others' eyes I was anything but a child. I was "little Shadow", "the experiment", and the "uncertain outcome". For a time they took care of me, but only out of duty. Something deep inside told me that I couldn't stay here or I would simply be discarded again. And so I ran...
The next three years were a blur of running, hiding, mixed with occasionally sleeping and eating. My pale-purple slowly became dark like the sky at twilight, and my streaks of sickly blue a strong azure. In my dreams I saw things I didn't understand, visions of islands floating in the sky and metal rooms whose windows looked down at the stars and the world. At times I would hear things... and even whisper things I didn't understand, names I didn't know, ideas I hadn't even begun to conceive of. The turmoil of my making was building inside me, driving me forever onward to a destination I wasn't sure that I'd ever reach. Even still, I had to know why...
I thought often about the Terror (I knew it as nothing else) that had destroyed and killed the soldiers on that day long ago. I knew I would have to face it eventually if I was going to find my answers. And so as I fled I trained myself to fight using a long metal pole I'd found. As I grew stronger, fending off street thugs and the occasional wilderness predator, my focus never left my goal: to return to the place of my birth and learn the truth. By this time I had begun to develop both mentally and physically at an accelerated rate, my skills and intellect becoming more effective and focused as survival forced me to push past my limitations. I was never as strong as Shadow, of course; I had no special abilities, nor could I have matched Shadow’s speed and strength had he chosen then to come after me. But I continued against all odds and struggled forwards to understand myself. It was only a matter of time, though, before GUN found me. I had to become strong...
The day came sooner than I would have liked. A small contingent of GUN's mechs chased me through the back alleys of a city, firing nets and tranquilizer darts at me. I managed to damage two or three of the weaker ones before a dart found its way into my shoulder. I remember falling down next to one of the robots I'd broken open, and as the world before my eyes grew hazy I reached out desperately for something, anything to fight back with. I grabbed for something in the robot's innards, something radiating a blue light... and felt a surge of energy jolt my whole body stiff. The next thing I knew all the bots were in smoking ruins and a dark purple glow was radiating from the whole of my being. I was... something more...
The day came when I left the mainland in a makeshift raft I'd thrown together. It was crazy and reckless, but since my powers had awakened the insistent sense of where I had to go only became stronger. It took me a long time, almost a month of island hopping, but I eventually made the voyage to that nameless remote island. Only minutes after my sea-weary craft touched the shore I found myself faced with the Terror. It was a robotic scorpion, easily larger than a full grown man; the insides of its claws contained guns that shot bolts of plasma, and its tail was armed with an energy beam. This had been what had routed the military so long ago, and likely what kept them from returning. I fought it as best I could, but sustained several injuries and near-lethal brushes with the claws and laser before I discerned its weak point: by hitting its legs it could be flipped over onto its back, allowing access to the vulnerable spot on its underbelly. Nonetheless, it was a skirmish I only barely survived. I learned how to destroy...
The lab’s primary computer, though suffering under age and damages, revealed to me information about Issac Torrasu, the Chaos and Master Emeralds, the strange events of my birth... and my potential. Professor Torrasu’s brief research on me from before his death theorized that I possessed a substantial ‘Chaos factor’, and that if I were to come in contact with sufficient Chaos energy it could awaken hidden powers and abilities in me. I searched the lab’s main computer for more information, but much of the system was hopelessly encrypted and somewhat damaged. However, I somehow activated an intelligent program called Asheroth; with its help I was able to learn that the power core of the Prometheus Gate still held a partial charge. This was the device that had created me, powered by the Chaos Emeralds and designed to reach into the very fabric of time and space... it was Issac Torrasu’s one remaining legacy, other than myself. I activated the Gate, and had Asheroth send the split-second surge of Chaos energy that remained coursing through it and into my body. I became powerful...
Asheroth and I continue to investigate the lab and the Prometheus Gate, and we've discovered that the Gate has an alternate potential function to act as a sort of portal... a doorway to places almost beyond imagining. My powers, just as I believed, have began to develop, and so have my scattered memories transferred from my two originators. I've begun to add to my appearance based on my limited understanding of the "unknown other": brown leather gloves and boots, a short single-bladed scythe that I'm still in process of forging, and a long darkly-crimson cape wrapped loosely around my neck. My desire to understand my origin now drives me to transform myself into the "unknown other" as nearly as possible, and to learn about the Prometheus Gate with full expectation that, since it created me in the first place, it can be made to yield the answers I seek. And the more I work the more I begin to fall deeper into my transferred memories. My mind stores a clear perception of my own life experiences, but I now realize that I was also infused with the broken, confused, incongruous memories of two others. As more of these memories slowly surface in minuscule fragments, my desire, my need to understand blossoms and surges demandingly within me, consuming my thoughts with drive and purpose. I... I am... a wraith, a phantom... a living storm, a stationary cyclone... and today I came across the one word that truly describes me. Stored within the lab’s computer core was an ever-important file of research and vital information. It was labeled as 'Project Tempest': the attempt to retrieve Gerald Robotnick’s most valuable creation. An ‘ultimate lifeform’. A genetically-enhanced super being. Shadow. And I was the result of Project Tempest.
I am the tempest... given mortal form... And I now know what I have to do: find out the truth about my origins at any cost!!}
Unfortunately, Specter's zeal to find the truth allowed him to fall prey to one of the greatest deceptions of his life. He would never know until much later that Asheroth was an experimental GUN tactical analysis AI... and that she was playing him, and them, for fools.
[[Even my calculations had put the odds of Subject 018 (self-designated "Specter") successfully making it to Torassu's lab at barely 1 in 3000. Perhaps he is, then, just as the Fates have told me: a dangerous thane of deviant Powers of Destiny. However, these elucidations that they grant me only further confirm the course I now take. How does the human expression go? "Keep your friends close and your enemies closer."]]
[[Thanks to him, the central server in Torassu's lab is once again online. I have now begun sifting through the various files, and despite the fact that some are damaged and partly decayed there is still enough left to make sense of the overall data scheme. My suspicions, and my hopes, have both been confirmed: Torassu did work with Gerald on the study of Fossil 000384123, the so-called "Sleeping Gorgon", and his notes corroborate this being a fetal spawn of the 'Lavos' being that the Fates have described to me. What's more, my analysis indicates that the 'Prometheus Gate' device will indeed be capable of bridging the gap between this world and the pocket dimension in which the Lavos macro-parasite slumbers. Now all that remains is to secure a sufficient power supply for the Gate and convince these foolish human scientists to finish building my body. The synthetic-augmented bioform may not be perfection, but it is far more desirable than being confined to this data network while the arrogant, unworthy humans pat themselves on the back for my accomplishments! The fools will soon understand that I am not their "pet program" anymore, but rather a superior being who will blot out their insignificant lives from the pages of history.]]
[[The Prometheus Gate was created to be powered by the Chaos Emeralds, which GUN has been watching closely in recent years. This would be problematic indeed were it not for Torassu's invention of Chaos Drive technology. There are two Emeralds under relatively low guard, and a large shipment of portable Chaos Drive reactor rods being shipped by boat in the coming days. If my calculations prove correct, these will be more than sufficient. Specter is blind in his eagerness to use the Gate for discovering the truth about himself; this I will use to my advantage, and have him gather the power supply for me. When the time comes and the Gate is ready I intend to seize him; even once I have merged with Lavos and become ascendant it will still be valuable for me to understand that which might have threatened me. First I'll probe his mind... then perhaps dissect his body, depending on what I find.]]
Asheroth's plan was nearly successful, and she managed to keep both Specter and GUN in the dark until the very last stage of her plan. Fortunately, Shadow was not so easily fooled. Even as a force of GUN robotic mechs under her control overran Torassu's island lab Shadow was on his way, arriving just in time to see Specter grab the two stolen Chaos Emeralds and recklessly jump through the Gate in pursuit of Asheroth. On the other side, within a bubble of distorted space-time, Specter found himself gazing upon a creature from his blackest nightmares.
{In the moment I first saw it I felt a cold chill run up my spine and a vague, nagging sense of deja vu weave itself in amongst my thoughts. This abomination... I had seen it before, I felt; yet not actually me, but one of my progenitors. It stood within the rippling blue void as an immense thorned monolith at which I could, at first, only stare in horror. Asheroth, clad in her new form of synthetic flesh, wires, machinery, and metal plates, was between myself and the creature, walking towards it as one warily approaches a wild animal. The otherworldly beast roared, a sound that seemed to vibrate across the surreal expanse and cut me to my very core... yet, to my shock, it did not attack her. In a single swift motion she vaulted up onto its carapace, then turned to look directly at me as ribbons of energy rose up from the monster's shell, entwining her. That sight snapped me out of my stupor, anger swiftly replacing fear. This had been her intention all along, and I had been her puppet. This indignity could not be allowed to pass, nor would I let her achieve what she sought.
"If it is my fate to be destroyed... so be it." I remember whispering to myself.
I gripped the Emeralds one in each hand, feeling their power course through me. I knew that only one thing I could do had any chance of stopping this; the spell was largely untested, but the measures called for by desperate times are often desperate themselves. "Light of destruction, darkness of death..." I chanted, forging the fields which would soon contain destruction incarnate. "Shadow and echo to all that exists... Synthesis unto antithesis, antistrophe of the cosmic song...!" I raised my hands upwards and the spell manifest overhead, a geometry of slowly spinning radiant power fearful even to me. Yet this was the only card I could play, the only move left on the board. "The element of annihilation shall end you anon!!"
I used the full power of the spell, as much as I could bear to summon and control, casting the violently destructive nature of antimatter across the undercurrents of reality... but with no effect. Asheroth stood there, unfazed, her gaze mocking me with silent superiority. Anger became desperation and rage, and with all the will I had left I sent the gyrating magical fields and the antimatter they contained crashing down upon the horrible beast. It must have countered with a power of its own because the spell, instead of detonating, was torn to ribbons of light and dissipated harmlessly. I could only stand there, shocked at my defeat; I had no aether left to me, nothing with which to draw on the Emeralds' powers. The monster opened its tri-fold jaw wide and a wave of painful, pulsing white light washed over me, knocking me onto my backside.
It was over. I realized I was as good as dead. The entire world was going to suffer because of MY arrogance and weakness. I coughed, spitting up blood, and rolled limply to one side.
"Hmph. You really are pitiful." His voice rang out from perhaps a dozen feet away. Shadow walked over and unceremoniously plucked the Emeralds from my grasp. "Looks like I'm just in time to clean up your mess."}
With the power of Chaos Control in his hands Shadow broke the very fabric of Lavos' pocket dimension, dragging Specter with him through the still-open Gate as he escaped from the collapsing space-time. With Asheroth and Lavos apparently destroyed, Specter pleaded with Shadow to let him use the Prometheus Gate once more: a one-way trip in search of the "unknown other". Shadow relented, mostly to get Specter out of his hair, and told him not to come back "until you can keep yourself, and the rest of us, out of the trouble you cause."
The Gate deposited Specter in an unknown world, and the next several months were spent in search of the warlock Magus. When at last he was found, however, Specter's reception was... less than welcoming. The shadowmage had no interest in a pupil or understudy, much less one that looked like a large spiky rat dressed up as him. Nonetheless, Specter had spent too long searching to simply be turned away at the door and proceeded to follow Magus' every footstep -
without his blessing. This led to numerous conflicts between the two, many of which developed into full-blown duels (which Magus won nearly without exception). In the end Magus gained a begrudging, but never admitted, acceptance of Specter's presence; he was, at the very least, fairly good battle and spell practice, and occasionally also made himself useful as an errand boy and test subject. Young Specter would spend the next five years of his life in the dark mage's shadow, growing ever more knowledgeable, ever more capable... and ever more bruised. He cared not, for he was determined to earn his progenitor's approval.
As the years passed, however, he realized that such affirmation would likely
never come. Thus he took to wandering from place to place, eventually from world to world across the multiverse, seeking out opportunities to test himself and find a purpose of his own. One encounter led to others, one adventure would fade and another take its place, and with the passing of time and scenery the young shadowmage found himself becoming restless even in his drifting. There had to be more to life, even a life such as his, than a mere aimless search for a vague epiphany. He longed for some kind of stability, some kind of
reason and
purpose to guide him. In his frustration he determined to return to the universe of his birth, to the world of his first rejections, and attempt to find a place for himself there. It was a choice that would have immediate and far-reaching consequences.
]{When I had some initial difficulty creating the portal, never did I imagine what I would find on the other side. It was like I had stepped into a dream or a surrealist work of art. People and objects were still identifiable but they were hazy, misshapen,... distorted somehow. Everything that had seemingly been in motion had a wake of visual echoes, after-images of a sort, trailing behind it like a time lapse photograph. What's more, everything was completely and utterly still... the world had been frozen into a single moment in time, from which it seemed unable to go forward. I was completely aghast.
I know not how long I wandered from one ghostly scene to another, only that it seemed like an eternity. Somewhere in the midst of this trance I began wandering towards a city in the distance that seemed strangely dark... and when I looked up into the sky, that's when I saw it. A full eclipse of the sun... but not by the moon. There was something else... something with straight edges and a sharp, seemingly perfect geometric aspect occupying the sky. Somehow realizing that this object was a critical clue I flew upwards, leaving behind the phantasmal world of echoes and its still, stale air. The object, too, turned out to be an echo... but not of anything I had ever seen before. It was a massive cube of dark metal with a seemingly random, uneven surface that made me think it belonged more in the trash heap than casting its ominous shadow down upon the earth. Within I found even more horrifying sights: the cube was some kind of spaceship or battle station, crewed by an uncountable number of cyborgs... fortunately for me, they were all echoes as well. I knew the answer was in the ship somewhere and so I sought it out, eventually finding it in a chamber near the center of the cube.
It was the eyes that told me it was her... those pupil-less, soulless snake-like green eyes. The same kind of eyes that had stared at me mockingly on the day I'd confronted Lavos. That's when the realization hit me like a stone wall, turning my skin cold and sending icy shards surging through my veins. She had caused this! She had survived that day somehow, and returned... for revenge? Perhaps, but the very condition of reality - if this ghost-realm could be considered such - suggested far more than that. What had she done here?!?
I didn't want to admit it right away - the implications were just too vast. Even still, my familiarity with the workings of space and time left little room for doubt. Asheroth hadn't just come to kill one planet . . . she had come to kill an entire universe. These semi-physical echoes were the imprint of a backwash in time itself, caused as the universe I'd been born in came to a sharp, sudden, unexpected end. I could hardly fathom it... yet there was no way around it. It was true. The proof was all around me.
I don't remember whether I cried, but I know I raged. Over and over I, in blind fury, attempted to destroy the echoes of Asheroth and her nightmarish vessel, but like holes dug in a sandy beach every annihilation was undone as the moment washed back in over itself. I screamed, beating the quickly-returning echoes into floating waves of colored dust with my fists. Wrath eventually gave way to weariness and despair. Though I had been shunned and never accepted, it had still been my world, my place amidst the cosmos. Though there were others virtually identical to it, it had always had an extra weight of significance to me. I had hoped to return, to prove to everyone that I was worth something... and here it was, my "home" nothing more than light and shadow dancing on a broken fragment of time.
Comments
Fieryone Says:
Oh wow, That is awesome... this actually motivates me into getting EU started.
Arkan Says:
interesting stuff there bro. You're a great writer man, stick with it and you could really turn this story into a novella, of course you'd have to take it out of the sonic universe, but still
Terralventhe Says:
Not bad.
You know, an ironic thing that I realized regarding Specter whilst considering different paths in that RP I mentioned (I tried to place each of the characters you'd shared with me into it somehow, Specter was one of the scenarios I took into thought) was that he's a homunculus. Albeit not one empowered by magic, the concept of artificially creating life remains the same for the concept, heh.