Here it is, people, that serious fic I said I'd be working on. Enjoy!
It had been a long time since sunrise. But Knuckles the Echidna hadn't moved since then, staying upright with his neck tensed. The Master Emerald behind him reflected the rays from the sunset, backlighting the echidna and transforming him into a menacing silhouette.
He made his first movement in hours by rotating his neck. A chorus of pops and cracks greeted him. In this motion, he missed a white form flitting from tree to tree.
Rouge the Bat smiled that seductive smile of hers. She was carrying an RPK light machine gun on her back and a PM pistol in her hands. The bat rolled behind the next tree silently. But Knuckles smelled danger. His spiked fist clenched.
Rouge climbed up the tree, biting her lip as she got a splinter in her paw. She flew from her position, landing on a ledge just above Knuckles. She watched the echidna's fist slowly unclench… to reveal a small metal sphere.
Knuckles hurled it into the air. With a beep, it gave an energy pulse that knocked Rouge down to the echidna's feet.
"When will you learn, bat-girl?" hissed Knuckles, but his expression conveyed amused annoyance rather than fury. "The Master Emerald can't be stolen. You'd have a better chance of getting Sonic to admit that Shadow is faster than him." Rouge hated to hear his voice, but at the same time she loved it. With a smile she planted her hands on the ground to stand… and kicked his legs, knocking him over. She sprang upright and smirked at the echidna before walking toward the Master Emerald's shrine. But she saw something in its reflective surface… something that shouldn't have been there.
She flew to the side as a spray of bullets sliced through the air, not harming the Master Emerald. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Knuckles spring up, looking for the source. So he hadn't been the shooter. But who?
She flew upward to see something made of metal streak toward the Emerald, moving too fast to see. It moved at a speed that would make Sonic and Shadow look like snails. The creature ran right into a tree, uprooting the tree and sending it collapsing in the path of Knuckles, who had began to chase it. The echidna tore through it with his gloves and removed several more of the energy pulses that Rouge had been struck by.
The bat wasn't willing to give up the Master Emerald to this creature. She unhooked her RPK and blasted a clip at the charging creature. It paused at the distraction, and both the echidna and the bat got a better look. It was sleek and lean, shaped like a hedgehog but nearly seven feet tall. Its eyes were red-tinted glass, and its right arm was a huge, triple-barreled cannon. The cannon spat out a series of mini-grenades, creating a huge explosion in front of Knuckles. The red powerhouse tried to leap it, but it was at least twenty feet wide. He couldn't…
Rouge flew in. Knuckles grabbed onto her legs and swung himself onto the robot, throwing punches that would have dented the Egg Carrier. But the robot showed no sign of damage. It picked up Knuckles with its left arm and threw him into a tree. Pieces of bark fell of with the impact. The metal creature stomped over to Knuckles, not seeing Rouge moving overhead.
A cannon clicked, and Knuckles stared cross-eyed at the barrel pointed at his head.
Rouge knocked Knuckles out of the way, picking him up as she went. The blast from the robot's arm uprooted the tree and sent it flying into the air… over Knuckles and Rouge.
Rouge stared helplessly up at the tree, hanging in midair, and suddenly felt lighter, less weighted down.
It was because Knuckles had let go.
The tree fell on top of the echidna. It splintered into many pieces, but Knuckles was surely dead.
"No!" screamed Rouge. The robot had been moving toward the Master Emerald, and Rouge immediately flew into its path, blasting as she went.
The robot's cannon arm switched to its second setting. Fifty or sixty silver objects that hummed whirred toward her, slicing through long grass that they encountered. The bat's wings were shredded, punctured by the missiles. She could no longer fly.
She leaped to where Knuckles had fallen, hoping to wake him, knowing she couldn't… and felt an impact behind her.
An explosion vaporized the bat instantly.
The robot flexed its strong left arm and ran to the Master Emerald. The robot picked up the Emerald as if it was a pebble and looked up at the sky, where a massive aircraft was descending.
Dr. Robotnik, usually known as Eggman, stepped out of the shuttle. Eggman had lost some of his pounds, and he was now lean and muscular. The robot came to him and placed the Master Emerald on a hovering cargo platform, which was guided away by several of Eggman's weaker robots.
"Excellent," cackled Eggman, a smile sprouting under his moustache. "With the Master Emerald and now the Chaos Emeralds, I shall reign supreme!" He then turned to the robot. "Where are the Chaos Emeralds?"
"As you know, the bat had stolen all of them and taken them here with her," said the robot in a deep voice. "She was vaporized by a blast."
This would have infuriated the doctor if it had happened with any other scheme involving the Chaos Emeralds, but Eggman was confident enough to be unaffected. "This could work out even better than I thought! The Master Emerald has enough power on its own to serve as a source of energy. If I harness that energy to my newest creation, nothing will stop me!"
"Yes, my master."
"Return to your position. We leave soon," said the doctor.
The robot that had taken the Master Emerald walked into the ship. It marched into a massive bay, filled with hundreds of others just like it. It stood in line, the one thousandth of its kind. The airship rose and departed Angel Island, leaving murder behind it.
Sonic felt something then, causing him to stop his running. It had to be something important for him to stop in the middle of a race against Shadow, so the black hedgehog backtracked back to Sonic. Their intense rivalry had degenerated over the years into a friendly competition, and Shadow wasn't going to take advantage of Sonic.
"What's wrong, Sonic?" he asked, waving a hand in front of Sonic when he didn't answer. "Hello?"
"I just… something's wrong," said Sonic. "It's…" He gazed around the beach where they had been racing. "Someone's here. Besides us."
Shadow looked around. "I'll check." He looked behind several palm trees, the only place to hide on the sandy shore. "There's nothing…"
Tikal appeared from out of the water. Sonic gave Shadow a brief look before turning to her. "What is it?"
"Knuckles and Rouge…" She coughed violently with a hint of a sob in it. "They're dead."
Sonic felt something in him, an empty space where his heart was. His temples throbbed once and he felt how silent it was. His hearing seemed to have increased, and the silence pressed on him.
"Dead?" asked Shadow in a gravelly voice that Sonic had never heard. "Dead?" The black hedgehog turned from them and walked several feet away. The footprints he left were heavy, as if he was using all his strength to remain upright. "They're dead," he whispered.
"Knuckles?" said Sonic in horror. "Rouge?" His face grew angry, so coldly furious that Tikal took a step back. "Who did this?" he demanded, his voice cracking.
"Eggman," she said. "He's developed a new robot. No vulnerable point whatsoever. You can't defeat them with conventional firearms. A fleet of them could take apart the military."
"He was on Angel Island," said Sonic, his face growing tense. "That would mean…" His face regained its anger. "Eggman's taken the Master Emerald," he whispered. "Rouge had the Chaos Emeralds with her. He's taken them!"
"Slow down, Sonic," said Tikal. "We found Knuckles body, but Rouge was vaporized by some blast, and the Chaos Emeralds with them.
"Do the others know about this?" asked Sonic, his body trembling. He heard soft sobbing from Shadow.
"I told Omega, and I practically had to reprogram him to keep from going after Eggman right now," said Tikal. "Nobody else. Can you think of anyone?"
Sonic thought of Amy Rose. He had gotten over his dislike for her, but sadly she had gotten over her affection for him. He didn't want to see her be sad. And Tails… he wouldn't tell Tails. He was too young.
"No," he said. "But I'm going after him."
"You're not leaving without me," said Shadow.
"Shadow, no," said Sonic. "This goes back longer than any of you. I'm going to kill Eggman. Kill him." The words echoed in his mind, and he felt disgusted for ever having been content with less.
"You think I don't want to kill him too?" asked Shadow coldly. "He killed Rouge. And I knew Knuckles too. We do this together."
"Eggman is going to be in Central Town in two days," said Tikal. "You can find him there. He can't bring an army of robots with him there."
"We go after him now," said Shadow, and he was about to dash off when Sonic stopped him.
"If we go after him together, we have to plan it right," said Sonic. "We can't rush through. We need to plan it."
"Omega and I can stay at your house until then, right?" said Shadow, recovering from his anger. "We're going to need to be together."
"Sure," said Sonic. The words Kill him echoed in his mind as he and Shadow raced toward Sonic's house.
Suspenseful, huh? Read and review!