Ultimatum (version 8)

That evening, after the plagues were cast upon Egypt, Sonic and Shadow walked all the way through Egypt back to Scourge's temple. They looked at one of the cracks at the bottom right side of the left sphinx, which was destroyed by the plagues. Then they walked into what looked like an old hiding place where Scourge always went when they were younger. "Scourge?" Shadow called, knowing that particular room in the temple. "Scourge?" Sonic called again this time. "Oh, let me guess," said Scourge sarcastically. "You, Sonic, want me to let your people go, and you, Shadow, are supporting him." He took a drink out of a handle-less goblet.

"I hoped we would find you here," said Shadow, trying to keep himself calm. "Get out!" hissed Scourge, throwing the goblet at the ground near Sonic and Shadow's standing point. Sonic and Shadow flinched, but they were not ready to give up. "Scourge, we must bring this to an end." Shadow insisted calmly. Scourge didn't respond. He just sat there angrily. "Scourge, please!" said Sonic, willing to say anything to who he called his "brother." "We could always talk here." Sonic insisted calmly. "Sonic is right." Shadow agreed. Scourge continued to just sit there, silently and angrily breathing, saying nothing.

Sonic and Shadow sighed coldly. The memory of the very room they stood in brought something back to their mind. "This place... So many memories. I remember the time you switched the heads of the Gods of the temple of Ra." Sonic smiled. "Indeed," Shadow said in agreement. Then the two were about to leave, but Scourge spoke up this time.

"If I recall, you were both right there, switching the heads right along with me," said Scourge cruelly. "No, it was you," Sonic said. "We didn't do that," Shadow added. "Oh, yes, you did. You put the hippo on the crocodile, and the crocodile..." said Scourge, just enough to get Sonic and Shadow to remember it all again. "...On the falcon." Sonic and Shadow smiled slightly. "Yes," said Scourge. "And the priests thought it was a horrible omen and fasted for two months! Father was furious! You were always getting me into trouble." Scourge angrily walked away, much further into the dark temple, but Sonic and Shadow followed him.

"But then... Heh... You were always there to get me out of trouble again." Scourge chuckled lightly, looked at his ring, lost his anger and suddenly looked very sad. "Why can't things be the way they were before?" Sonic and Shadow could only give a reassuring smile at the memories they brought up again.

"Father?" said a voice. It came from a dark-looking teenage boy. He had tan fur, brown eyes, small whiskers, and wore only a white kilt with red belt-like wrap, a golden brightly jeweled collar, and matching armbands. He was holding a torch in his left hand. His name was Vanitas, and he was Scourge's son. "It's so dark," said Vanitas. Scourge noticed his son standing there. They moved closer together. "I'm frightened. Why are *they* here? Isn't that the hedgehog and your little brother who did all this?!" There was a pause. "Yes," said Scourge, knowing the plagues that were brought to Egypt. "But one must wonder *why*. Especially when one of them...." He looks at Shadow bitterly. "Was my little brother...."

Sonic and Shadow both started to look very angry. "Because no kingdom should be made on the backs of slaves." Shadow said, "Scourge, your stubbornness is bringing this misery upon Egypt." "It would cease if only you would let my people go," Sonic begged in agreement. Then Shadow said as if begging, "And you *have* to do what Sonic says!" But Scourge and his tortured teenage youth were unwilling to succumb to Sonic and Shadow's common sense. "I will not be dictated to. I will not be threatened. Not even by my own brother. I am the Morning and the Evening Star. I am Pharaoh." "Something else is coming," Sonic replied, much angrier. "Something much worse than anything before. Please. Let go of your contempt for life before it destroys everything you hold dear. Think of your son!" "And more importantly, your kingdom!" Shadow agreed, starting to get calmly angry.

Vanitas became more frightened in a calm way. Still holding the torch in his hand, he moved closer to his father. "I do," said Scourge, but he too was getting angrier. "You Mobians have been nothing but trouble." He turned to the hieroglyph that depicted Eggman ordering the firstborn of Sonic's ancestors to be stolen by the Egyptians, thrown into the Nile and eaten by the crocodiles. "My father had the right idea about how to deal with your people." Hearing this made Sonic and even Shadow very angry. "Scourge!" Scourge was still not done. "And it's time I finished the job!" Sonic and Shadow were furious. "SCOURGE!!!!" Scourge has just about reached his breaking point by now. "And there shall be a great cry in all of Egypt, such as never has been or ever will be again!"

Well, these words were just too much, even for Sonic and Shadow. They were horrified and enraged. They saw the painted likeness of Eggman pointing at the Egyptians, ordering them to throw the babies into the Nile again, and turned to Vanitas, who gasped in shock. He looked at Scourge, his father and then looked at Sonic and Shadow, the latter his uncle, now on the verge of tears. Sonic shook his head in fear while Shadow calmly closed his eyes in lost thought, but soon got their courage and anger back as Sonic said while Shadow opened his eyes in calm anger, "Scourge, you bring this upon yourself." "It's your call," Shadow said in calm anger.

That night, some of Sonic's people were doing some things thanks to Sonic and Shadow's message from God. They marked the broken down quarters, their resting shacks with blood they got from lambs that they drew blood from and used them to mark the lintels and posts of every door of those quarters so that a difference would be told by something God might send, and they had torches so they could see what they were doing.

"God has come to me again, saying: take a lamb and with its blood mark the lintel and post of every door. For tonight, I shall pass through the land of Egypt and smite all the first-born. But when I see the blood upon your door, I will pass over you, and the plague shall not enter." said Sonic to Amy, Rouge, Silver, Blaze, Sonia, and Manic reassuringly, before Shadow allowed the straw blinds to roll back down over the window and before they went to sleep and Sonic and Shadow awaited the next given moment.

When Scourge said "And there shall be a great cry in all of Egypt, such as never has been or ever will be again" in the temple earlier, Sonic and Shadow did not know, that his prediction was just about to come true, but not in the way he thought it would.