The battle had been going on for about 3 hours. Sore and drained of energy, Sonic was desperately looking a something--anything--that could be used against his opponent, which was a two-story robotic spider with heat motion sensors on each joint of its legs and one on its underbelly, not to mention the 8 eyes on its head. No matter where he went he would be sensed by the robot in one way or another, and with its agility bordering his own and strength that Knuckles would have been envious of, Sonic saw no advantage in his favor. The quiet clearing in the middle of a serene forest was devoid of anything that Sonic could use to his advantage and had been that way for about 2 hours since this robot crushed its immediate surrounds and blasted everything else that wouldn't surrender to its massive weight because Sonic had been tricking it into tripping on logs and rocks for the hour before that. Sonic's mind was now in survival mode, searching for that one lifesaver.
Then, he saw it. The clouds parted and a divine, bright light came down from the heavens--or at least it seemed to him--on a single ring. That one power boost was all he needed. Just one well-aimed spin dash through its body was all he wanted. His body on autopilot due to exhaustion, Sonic snatched the ring, absorbed its energies, and, hearing the robot's sensors overloading, shot through the robot's shell like a bullet. He was just barely able to evade the explosion's radius as the robot's self-destruction mode kicked in at the last second, but what little of the explosion that did hit him he was able to withstand. However, that little bit of extra effort took his last reserves of energy. Exhausted, and satisfied with his victory, Sonic collapsed on the damaged and beaten forest floor.
Most everyone that had anything beyond a "first-name basis" with Sonic was on edge. Amy see-sawed between depressed, extremely annoyed, extremely worried, and then back to depressed again. Tails went through the same cycle, although admittedly less extreme, probably due to the fact that he flew around trying to find him, or to get his mind off the fact. Cream and Vanilla kept their hopes up—Sonic had always come back from even longer absences; what made this time different? At that point after either of them said something along those lines, Knuckles would respond with a comment along the lines of "And he always brought trouble with him too!" And if Amy had even semi-recovered from her emotional torment, that comment would surely trigger it again, accompanied by swings of her hammer at Knuckles.
Even Shadow was getting maybe just a bit worried. Of course, he wouldn't actually say that he was worried about Sonic; he would say that if an enemy actually defeated Sonic, the only person he can say is a worthy opponent for himself, then he would have to defeat (or destroy, whichever came first) this enemy in order to defend his "Ultimate Lifeform" status. And unlike Knuckles, Shadow actually enjoyed the fact that Sonic always found an adventure to follow or a new enemy to crush—made life a little more interesting. Let Knuckles guard his precious Emerald and island; it'll keep him out of Shadow's way.
However, if Sonic isn't there to provide the adventure, then Shadow sometimes had to go look for it. Which was what he was doing right then. Zipping through a random forest at roughly 300 mph, Shadow was looking for something, anything, that would prove even in the least bit interesting. And he found it, after just an hour of searching. After going past lush forest the stark difference of the roughly demolished clearing shocked him. As soon as the shock wore, his interest peaked; finally, something worth looking at. At that very moment he noticed the remains of what appeared to be a colossal machine, a robot perhaps. He couldn't tell if it was one of Dr. Eggman's robots or not, but before it blew up (or whatever happened to it), it was a very advanced robot. The onboard computer and sensory mechanics that Shadow could see in the mess was beyond anything that he had fought. Finally, a new opponent. Shadow wandered through the site, inspecting each piece of equipment that could have possibly come from the robot, devising strategies and tactics, should he have the privilege of fighting one of these marvelous machines himself. Yes, marvelous. Tails would love to scrutinize these parts himself. Surely it would get his mind off Sonic for a while. When that thought crossed his mind, Shadow smirked. Of course. This is probably what Sonic was up to these past two months: fighting this new technology. And not telling him, Shadow, about any of it. How selfish of him. Shaking his head, Shadow had to agree—he wouldn't tell Sonic about this if he was the one who found out. Why share the fun?
After a few more minutes of searching, Shadow started to notice something. From what he could tell, the machine was a metallic color, or just not painted. Some of the metal had some kind of dried brown liquid on them. Upon closer inspection, Shadow deduced that it was blood. Sonic's blood? Did this machine….? Shadow almost started to worry, but shook it off. Just because Sonic bled a little bit didn't mean a thing. Just that Sonic probably made some careless mistakes, mistakes that he wouldn't make again. Besides, it didn't look like there was a fatal amount of blood lost. Satisfied with his reasoning, he continued his search, now looking for any sign of Sonic, or at least the direction he took off to. After a while, Shadow heard something other than himself moving among the metallic remains. A moan…? Shadow dashed in the direction that he felt he heard it come from, looking for whoever was unfortunate enough to be here of all places. A few seconds later Shadow detected something moving near an abused bush near the edge of the site. As Shadow dashed towards it, he recognized the figure. Sonic, close to consciousness, had a wide assortment of cuts, gashes, and other such injuries. Shadow didn't know whether he should be ashamed of him for letting a mere machine, however marvelously advanced, get the best of him, or strangely proud of him for destroying such a marvelously advanced machine without any assistance from his allies whatsoever. But Shadow did know that he needed to get Sonic to a hospitable as soon as possible. Not wanting to further agitate his condition, Shadow gently picked Sonic up, hoping that the 2 hour trip to Station Square wouldn't cause anymore harm.
As Shadow jogged through the familiar forest at roughly half the speed he was originally traveling, an amusing thought crossed his mind. Either he was becoming more like Sonic, or Sonic was becoming more like him.
Three days after Sonic had been mysteriously found at the Station Square Central Hospital, rumors were spreading like wildfire. While most of the stories followed the same old "he saved the world from Dr. Eggman again" formula, others were a little more creative, saying that he fought off demons or stopped a group of terrorists. Since none of Sonic's teammates, or "allies" as Knuckles preferred, knew about the situation, the media felt that it was their duty to fabricate a story that at least sounded believable. (Since Shadow could not have been found for questioning, it only made the stories more interesting.)
So it could go without saying that no matter when, or where, you went outside, one could hear at least two versions of the "same" story being recited at any time. After the first hour Amy found it amusing—some of the stories involved her as the damsel in distress which Sonic heroically rescued (no word yet on the "happy ending")—but after hearing the same stories about thirty times each, anyone would have been at least annoyed. So this time, instead of slowly walking to the hospital expecting the worst, Amy briskly jogged to the hospital hoping for the bes, and that these stupid little rumors would go away. When she got there, however, it looked the same as how she had left it the day before; Sonic, hooked up to oxygen and heart monitors ("Just in case," says the doctor.), looking just as sickly as the moment she saw him. Three days, and although his condition was stable, he still did not look as though he was getting any better. At the very least, the doctors had high hopes. Amy only hoped that whatever happened never repeated itself.
Five months. That's how long Rouge had been hacking into the government's network for any work on "Project: Diamond". And for five months, she found nothing. The only thing she could tell about the project at this point was that it (presumably) involved large diamonds, had a five-step bioscan entry code, at least six firewalls protecting the "outer files", and another separate system of 19 firewalls and a ten-step bioscan entry code that protected the "central files", which Rouge could not get into. She was able to bypass most of the "outer" security, but the "central" security continued to stump her. She had tried everything that she could think of: virtual access, traditional hacking, fake bioscans, real bioscans, even a couple of viruses. But none of her techniques got her even close to her goal. Even worse, the outer files had hardly any information; most information was stored in the central files. Needless to say, Rouge was curious. Why was the government so protective of this project? The security around Project: Shadow was a cake walk compared to this. And so for five months Rouge was left to ponder just what exactly Project: Diamond was.
Today, she hardly expected the status quo to change. So after skimming the obviously fake article about Sonic heroically saving the world from a secret plot by Eggman ("Secret? Eggman? Hah!"), Rouge took her time getting to the outside files of her target Project. However, something had changed. After the basic description of the project being a top secret project for the government, which Rouge had seen time and time again, there was something new. Now it had a status window. But the only thing it said was "Phase One: Complete. Initiating Phase Two." This threw Rouge for a loop. From what little information she could gather, she thought that the project was just in the preliminary stages, every detail being planned out. But it had apparently already started.
He was running as fast as his terrified body could take him. He didn't have a sane clue as to how far he had run; all he knew was that he had to keep running.
It was catching up to him.
He was running through a thick forest. Other than that he had no idea where exactly he was. And between dodging random logs, rocks, and other obstacles and keeping a safe distance between him and...It, he couldn't spare any more effort thinking about anything else. Suddenly he saw light between the trees. After what seemed like an eternity running through the forest, he would finally escape. Well, not really; it didn't matter where he ran--that thing would always be chasing him. But at least now he had something to look forward to--the openness and brightness of the grasslands. As he approached the border between the two worlds, he prepared to embrace it--
He suddenly jerked. For a horrible millisecond, against his commands, his body slowed down. At first he couldn't comprehend why. Then it dawned on him--he tripped. And what was worse was that he was going so fast he couldn't recover himself. And as he fell, he noticed that there were several large sharp rocks that would be just where his body would land. His fall seemed to take an eternity. That long eternity gave him plenty of time to ponder the irony of his situation. He knew that he had something to tell someone. Something very important, but he couldn't quite remember what. He also knew that something terrible was chasing him. But somehow, maybe in his panic, he had forgotten what exactly was chasing him. It was funny, he knew he knew, but he forgot why he didn't know. All he knew definitely was that when his body did hit the sharp rocks, it was an incredible pain that he never knew before.
The doctors were in a panic. Sonic, who was stable, suddenly started to lose blood pressure and increase heart rate. Just minutes before, he was sleeping peacefully with Amy holding his hand, gently talking to him. Now she was against the wall, out of the way, too shocked to scream, too terrified to move, tears streaming down her face. She could only watch as doctors and nurses grabbed their equipment and drugs to try to … well, stop whatever was causing it. As a nurse injected drugs into his IV, she screamed. The doctors looked to where she looking when they noticed that, on top of everything else, he was apparently bleeding internally as well. Blood was oozing out of the corners of his mouth. One doctor ripped the oxygen mask off while another opened his mouth to try and see if somehow he had gotten cut in this mouth somehow and the blood was kept from bleeding until now. Perhaps the low blood pressure triggered it? This however, was not the case; it was coming from his throat, and if they didn't do something right then, then Sonic would drown in his own blood. The first doctor realized this and, taking a breathing tube from sterile storage, forced it down his throat, due to the fact that his injuries would have made an incision in his neck for the breathing tube very hazardous. Once the blood started to go down, they went back to focusing on the other problems, which were getting worse. His blood pressure was getting down to the twenties, and the drugs for the increased heart rate were not working. The breathing tube was starting to fill with blood, restricting oxygen flow. Amy wanted to run, but as far as to where, she couldn't make up her mind. It seemed like the end….
Then Sonic woke up. All at once everything started to go back to normal. The doctors removed the breathing tube, allowing him to cough up any remaining blood. Due to the adrenaline of his "condition", his body reacted rather quickly, allowing him to cough up the blood without any assistance. After a few minutes he was just panicked, tired, and confused. His blood pressure was normal, heart rate just a little above normal due to the shock but nothing to worry over, and the bleeding stopped. It was as though Sonic was experiencing a nightmare both mentally and physically. Amy finally broke down, coming over to Sonic's side and cried, burying her head in the pillow gently hugging him. The doctors, however, rushed out to the testing lab with the blood stained tube. Something else was going on, and they had to figure it out before it actually kills him.
"Come on, Miss Amy! You need to come with us! We're going to have a great lunch and we know you'll love it!" Cream argued. For the past half hour, about four hours after Sonic's emergency, Cream and her mother Vanilla tried to get Amy to come with them for lunch, not so much for the meal, but so that she would not spend all of her time at the hospital. But Amy stood her ground. Sonic could have easily died earlier that morning, and Amy did not want him to be alone. Of course she did not tell Cream and Vanilla about that morning; all they needed to know was that she didn't want to leave him.
Cream was about to give in, but Vanilla, like Amy, was stubborn when she made up her mind. "Amy, for your own health and well being, you need to come with us. Sonic may want you by his side, but not when your health comes into question. Sometimes, you need to be selfish when it comes to your needs. He'll understand."
"But Vanilla, because of his condition, he has hardly been awake whenever he has visitors. I know he wants to see a few friendly familiar faces. That would help him more than medicine, and I want to be here when he wakes up for that reason." As Amy restated her argument, she never took her eyes off Sonic's sleeping form. Since the incident, the doctors put him on morphine in hopes of relieving most of the pain so that he could sleep peacefully. As an extra precaution a nurse was always nearby just in case he did have a relapse.
At this Vanilla sighed. Neither of them were willing to budge in their resolve. Vanilla thought momentarily about dragging her out, but that would cause a commotion; still, it was the only resort that she hadn't used yet. "When was the last time he was awake?"
Amy's body grew tense as she thought of an answer. Vanilla thought that, judging by her reaction, Sonic really hadn't woken up, and that Amy wanted to be the first friendly face that he saw. However, what Amy was really thinking about was how to tell them that he had woken up, if just for a few minutes, but only because he the pain of his near-death experience woke him, not his curiosity. Amy did not want to tell them, but she also did not want to lie to them.
Vanilla smiled, seeing her only other option. "Since the staff here know you've been here for so long, and know for certain that you'll return, I'm sure they'll make him as comfortable as possible until you return. Like I said before, he'll forgive you for going out for some air."
Unwilling to play her ace just yet, Amy yielded. Shrugging her shoulders, she merely smiled. "I guess I just can't win today. Alright, let's have that lunch!"
"Hurray!" Cream exclaimed. Instantly Amy panicked, looking over to Sonic to see if, for any reason at all, his sleep was disturbed. Noting Amy's reaction, Cream covered her mouth, also looking at Sonic with the most pitiful eyes. Vanilla gently scolded her daughter; they were in a hospital, after all, and there were other patients other than Sonic. Amy calmed down, and, noticing Cream's shamed look, placed her hand on Cream's shoulder.
"Don't worry. It'll take a lot more than that to wake him." Amy said, ignoring the shiver that went down her spine. She brought Cream in for a hug, comforting her. Cream, feeling the relative calmness about Amy, felt better already. As a matter of fact, she grabbed her mother and Amys' hand, leading them out of the room.
As the trio left the room, the nurse went into the room to perform her hourly check-up. Since the incident, as duly noted before, the staff kept extra nurses around Sonic just to be safe. But the nurse wasn't stupid; there was another reason why they were required to keep regular checks on him. A high-level order from the central government was sent to them as soon as they took Sonic in as a patient, or rather, found him near the entrance to the ER. The order simply stated for them to keep Sonic in the hospital "until either his condition is cured or an unforeseen command is issued". "Unforeseen command"? Reading between the lines, the nurse could only imagine what that could mean. Perhaps Sonic has gotten himself involved in some military work? It was possible, but if the nurse remembered anything about the "official stories" (Amy often recounted them on her visits.), it would be very unlike him to do so. As she checked the life support system, she could only imagine how they "enlisted" him. Threats? Actual benefits? Protection? The list was as ridiculous as it was long. And the list would have gotten longer had the nurse not notice the strange mark on Sonic's shoulder. She had never noticed it before. It looked like…an infection? Was this what caused…? Panic overwhelmed her as she slammed on the emergency button on the wall next to his bed. She had heard rumors that the lab work recently done on the blood from the breathing tube was strange, but now things were about to get a bit stranger.
It was a slow battle. Two kingdoms, seemingly representing Light and Dark, were locked in a battle of strategy and wits. At first, both sides were merely positioning their troops. But then, one of the knights on the side of Light broke rank, charging the ranks of Darkness. The soldiers of Darkness were caught off guard, while the soldiers of Light just stood back. Why interfere with a suicidal run against their enemy? By himself, the soldier fought against incredible odds. Even more incredible was the fact that he was winning. Either the soldiers of Darkness were making foolish mistakes, or that one soldier of Light had abilities that his comrades couldn't explain.
However, eventually, the lone soldier was surrounded. The formation of Darkness also left the path to the leader, King of Darkness, wide open. The lone soldier knew that his comrades would take the opposing leader while they had the chance; but maybe, just maybe, they would rescue him from his dilemma. Instantly, the forces of Light charged forward, cornering and defeating all of the Dark soldiers who had cornered the lone soldier. It did not take too long for the King of Darkness to fall to the slaughter. Soon, it was just the lone soldier, his fellow comrades and superiors, among which was the second-in-command, the Queen of Light, against the opposing Queen of Darkness, who stood alone without any guards. The lone soldier felt safe, knowing that his comrades would save him. As the Queen of Darkness stepped forward, he knew that his comrades would strike her down. Closer she came. The lone soldier finally felt his fatigue. But it didn't matter now, he could rest safely: his comrades were right there to protect him. She came closer still. Suddenly, he noticed that he was very much alone. But why...? They knew he couldn't defend himself. Why were they abandoning him? He noticed then that she was within striking distance, smiling. Then he finally took a good look around.
He really was alone...
As his face contorted with horrified realization, he saw out of the corner of his eye the Queen of Darkness' sword swing down...