Life in the Flames
By Angnix
PG-13
A new Sonic 06 based fic, about life after Iblis was released and it's a Shadow and Rouge story. Enjoy!
Chapter 1: The Flames are Released
The sky over Kingdom Valley was covered end-to-end with a thick blanket of foreboding gray clouds. Sonic could see the red and black Egg Carrier in the distance. A Sonic Boom emanated from the Blue Hedgehog as he broke the speed of sound, trying to save Princess Elise who was trapped on board. The ship sprouted three long plumbs of flames. Sonic ran even faster, he knew this didn't look good. What happened next would be forever burned into Sonic's brain. The ship with the most sickening crunching sound he ever heard plowed into a distant mountain. The orange light that came from the ship almost burned Sonic's eyes, but emotionally instead of physically. In despair, he sank to his knees. But Silver and Blaze were not there close behind him. This was before the Time Paradox that eventually lead to Sonic saving Elise by traveling back through time itself. There was no way he could save her. It was too late. Cautiously, Sonic went up to the crash sight, to see if anything made it out alive. Suddenly, a small ship arose out of the Egg Carrier's ashes. Sonic always wondered how Eggman always survived major explosions the way he did. Sonic was about to go after him, maybe he had Elise with him! But, he stopped in his tracks when he saw a single feather sticking out from under a piece of burning wreckage. Sonic cautiously walked over and lifted up the jagged piece-of-metal. What was underneath is to horrible for me to describe. Suddenly, a small ball of Flame arose from Elise's body. Sonic was taken aback, was even her soul set on fire by the burning wreckage and was trying to escape? Eggman with a very twisted look of happiness exclaimed "So killing her was the secret to releasing the Flames! Now all I have to do is figure out how to catch it!" Sonic didn't say a word or even move. How could Eggman do something as cruel as letting her die? The Flame went to the North, while Eggman went the opposite direction. Sonic decided to follow Eggman, he couldn't get away with this! In the distance, a member of the Soleanna Guard who was also tracking Elise caught a glimpse of Sonic speeding away from the wreckage. But the Guard saw him incorrectly and even used a cell phone to tape him through the thick smoke and thought GUN Agent Shadow caused the wreck that killed Elise…
A year had passed since that day. Eggman is still trying to capture that Flame, but it seems to elude every single plan he has come up with. Sonic and friends are trying to stop the Flame. The Flame started to find the long missing "Mysterious Stones of Soleanna" which Tails quickly determined were one and the same as the Sol Emeralds they had encountered before. This of course confused Tails, didn't they go back to the alternate dimension and why didn't he realize their existence in his world before? But it did not matter, every Sol Emerald Iblis, the Flames of Disaster found meant the death of millions more people as it changed into more powerful forms. Of course they tried to evacuate people, but it's hard to evacuate large areas of land. Plus the environmental damage all the smoke caused to the atmosphere caused millions more to starve to death, even if they did not live within the Flame's reach. Everyone was afraid the Flames would cover the entire planet when it found all 7 Sol Emeralds. And the Chaos Emeralds… where did they go? Those Flames… Sonic felt so responsible. He even tried to tell people it was his fault, he should be punished. But nobody would listen to Sonic, they wanted their Blue Hero to stop the Flames. Those Flames seemed hungry for living things. Eventually they consumed Tails and Knuckles, even Cream and her Mother. If only the Chaos Emeralds could be found so those Flames could be stopped! Meanwhile, Shadow was blamed with the Princess's death and that was eventually stretched to include releasing the Flames, even though he too is trying to stop the Flames…
"Hmph, don't you realize that I am trying to help you?" said a very tired Shadow after defeating a whole battery of GUN Laser Hunters in the middle of Crisis City. This place was so chocked in smoke, night was ink black except the orange glow of the lava, and the daytime was an orange haze. Now it's Midnight and the orange glow shown brighter than before. The Flames were getting higher on the buildings, as if they were going after Shadow themselves. Crisis City used to be downtown New City Soleanna, but was now where the creature's power was felt most. An agent that once worked by Shadow's side all the time now had a gun pointed to his head.
"Say that all you want, but we know what kind of Princess Killing and Iblis-releasing traitor you are! Hands up where I can see them, now!"
Suddenly, a purple flash bomb landed between Shadow and the Agent, blinding them both. Shadow felt two arms wrap tightly around his waist and could hear the beat of two wings softly whistling through the air. Rouge, the now former GUN agent that immediately left the organization after they started a man-hunt for Shadow. She seemed to show up when things were looking their worst.
The bat carried her heavy and tired cargo on top of a high skyscraper. Up here a lot of the heat of the lava below did not reach, and the building seemed stable enough. Plus this building used to house a top-secret Soleanna Government lab. It was shielded from outside signals and contained top-secret information about Soleanna the remaining Heroes found very helpful. Plus all the lava kept humans away, who could not fly on their own.
"Shadow we seriously need to find the Chaos Emeralds again, so I don't have to keep carrying you up to this building! Chaos Control would come in handy for so many things! My back muscles are killing me!"
"The Chaos Emeralds may not be around, but look at this!"
Shadow reached his hand behind his back, and suddenly a beautiful Sky Gem materialized in his hand. Rouge gestured she wanted to touch the beautiful Gem and Shadow handed it to her. The light blue sparkles coming from the rectangular jewel tickled her face.
"Shadow, how did you get it?"
"I didn't. Sonic gave it to me."
"What, why?"
"To try to help me. Sonic found it and showed me he could teleport to wherever it was thrown, a form of Chaos Control! He wanted me to have it to see if I could use full Chaos Control with it… but…"
"But what Shadow?"
"This Sol Emerald is useless to me… that Blue Hedgehog can use a power I cannot!
