A/N: Hello! It's me, ABCSonicKirbyWarriors here with a re-write of my first ever, never-finished story! I found a few…(Okay, a lot!) of things to be suuuper cliche, so I'm going to try to make my OC into a not-complete-Mary Sue...Man, I've been on this wonderful website a year and a few months and I spent only about 4 months of those months writing at all… I had little motivation, and even less time to write, and what finally got my lazy butt on a chair long enough to start typing is Sonic Boom. (Writer's block SUCKS.) I'm pretty excited for it-it seems like it's gonna be cool-and Sticks...well, you'll see what I think later(I like her, don't worry).
Ugh, I'm rambling. Sorry, expect this from me. Without further ado…..
(And yes, there's a reason it's in italics.)
A neverending view of stars, some close, some far away, some in actuality being planets, all glowing against the dark sky. A set of controls and buttons and an occasional lever at his fingers. The faint reflections of his friends against the glass. The sounds of chatter from behind.
He felt content. It was over. The whole adventure was over.
A plan of Eggman's gone wrong. That was all it took for the Chaos Emeralds to scatter themselves across the universe; Eggman had another plan that he'd blabbered incessantly about while trying to destroy them with a robot with an outdated design he couldn't even remember the name of on the notion that he could make it more powerful with the energy of all seven Chaos Emeralds. It was a surprise that all seven Emeralds had actually come into his grasp and that Sonic and co. hadn't been able to stop him from acquiring them; the robot, surprisingly, responded to the Chaos energy...every blow more powerful, every missile more forceful. With a little work, though, it was defeated.
But the Emeralds scattered.
And Eggman let on that he was working on something more. Something that posed a greater threat.
No one believed him, of course. But when bursts of strange energy, so searingly powerful huge numbers of people were hurt and sometimes even killed daily, started fluctuating on and off all throughout the world, something needed to be done.
It didn't matter whether Eggman had been the cause of it or not. It was an urgent situation, and they couldn't afford to waste the precious time they had.
And so the hunt for the Chaos Emeralds began….
"According to this, the first Chaos Emerald is still on Mobius somewhere, and it's in an area where frequent bursts of the energy have appeared. If we're going to retrieve it, we're going to have to be careful."
"Shadow...Rouge...Silver...Blaze? ...What are you doing here?"
"We want to help. You gonna let us help or what?"
"We only have two more Emeralds! We can do this, right?"
"You bet, buddy!"
"We did it! Yes! Finally!"
He smiled.
It was finally over.
He was glad. Maybe now the peace could last. Peace was nice and comfortable. It gave him time. A thing he didn't have lately.
It was almost time to return to Mobius. The entry into the atmosphere would be hot, to say the least.
He had no worries. His spaceship could handle it.
The ship jolted. He didn't jump...not much, anyway. He'd expected it. He'd felt it before. The pretty dark sky speckled with twinkling lights changed to flaming reds and oranges and yellows streaming off the ship's nose. The world he could see was on fire.
It was pretty, in its own way. Not really pretty...but it had a fiery beauty to it.
The flames grew smaller, smaller...weaker and weaker…
...and then they died out, and all he could see when he looked straight ahead was blue sky and clouds. He could see, below him, the vague shapes of land.
They'd made it safely.
...Or so he thought.
The ship jolted violently, even more so than when he'd re-entered the atmosphere. He could hear the chattering cease, only for it to be replaced with surprised calls. The ship jolted again.
And again.
And again.
And the lights went out.
A few dumbfounded screams and cries sounded.
Oh no.
With no power, nothing was keeping the ship moving smoothly down.
Another jolt.
"What happened to the Chaos Emeralds?"
"I don't know…! They just completely lost their power-SONIC GET OVER HERE!"
"What did I do? Mr. Tall, Dark, and Fluffy's the Chaos expert!"
He blocked it all out-the angry muttering, the scared murmurs-ignored the sweat that started to trickle down the side of his head. The controls sharpened as something shifted behind his gaze-every edge, every little button-he could see it all. He HAD to get this together.
-Routing backup power to engines, now.
The lights flickered on again. Feeling relief course through him, he steered the ship towards a landing.
-Backup power source lost.
What…? But that's not possible. The backup power source's the-
The lights flickered again. Just once. Then they went off.
"WHAT THE -!?"
"Knuckles, no! There are kids on board, in case you didn't notice!"
"But...what happened to the Master Emerald? I swear…."
No! How can the power be off!? It shouldn't be possible-I'll just have to try to get it back on!
The ground came closer, closer, closer still…
It seemed to want to hold them in a crushing embrace that would break all their bones…
It would be bad if they crashed at their current location-a huge forest with densely packed trees. He could see nothing but trees for miles when he looked down.
Knuckles was desperately trying to power up the Emeralds, but all his efforts were in vain.
He couldn't block out the screams. And with their power source having lost any type of power, he could do nothing to make them go away…
I don't understand...! What could possibly make all seven Emeralds AND the Master Emerald lose power like that!?
He wracked his mind, trying to think. If Knuckles could get outside, he could perhaps stop the ship from falling as quickly with his strength. But...it would be unwise to open the door at the speed they were falling-everyone would be sucked outside to fall to their possible/probable deaths, and flimsy protection was better than none. Maybe if the trees caught them before they crashed?
...Maybe. But how much good would it be? They'd still fall to their deaths, unless the ones who could fly carried those who couldn't to the ground. And it wouldn't happen anyway-there seemed to be a clearing near where they were falling, and if he'd calculated the angle correctly, they would probably land in the clearing.
"If anyone can fly, float, or glide, save yourselves," a normally-stoic female voice murmured, rather grimly. "Then you can help with damage control."
That's a good deal of us that can move in air…
He wracked his mind, every nook and cranny of it, for a last-ditch idea to stop the seemingly inevitable crash. But nothing jumped to mind.
I failed, you guys...sorry…
"Find cover-this is gonna hurt!" He yelled the words, trying not to show the terror that made his heart pound and his legs shake.
He heard people searching for the safest spots, groping their way in the darkness, the faint light of day streaming through the windows the only thing lighting the ship, fear in their voices. Those who weren't worried about themselves stayed above deck. Someone asked about his safety; he barely heard them.
"I'll try to steer the ship towards that clearing! That'll be a bit safer!"
He desperately tried to steer, but to no avail.
It wouldn't work, he realized fearfully. He jumped out of his seat(no point in staying there if he couldn't do anything), got as far away as he could with the ship leaning so that he was running almost straight up, and ducked, covering his head. Everyone else was probably trying to protect themselves as well. He squeezed his eyes shut, feeling a little sick, partly because of how fast they'd been falling, partly because he'd failed to stop the crash, partly because of the terrified screams he could hear.
His stomach flip-flopped and his heart sank.
The ground came closer, closer, closer still…
And then it came to meet them with open arms.
The sounds of metal denting. Parts breaking. Bones breaking. Screaming. A loud 'BOOM'. The world swam…
He'd forgotten how vulnerable he was, being in the front of the spaceship, manning it. He hadn't managed to get very far away in the next to no seconds he'd had.
Almost-unbearable pain shot through him, and he gasped and stopped trying to move. It made no difference. Slowly he attempted to sit up.
No good. He was too dizzy, seeing black spots dancing everywhere...and his stomach hurt.
It was hard to think….It was hard to form any semblance of a thought…
"Oh no!" A voice exclaimed. He felt like he ought to recognize it, because it was so familiar...it made him feel safe. But pain and dizziness scrambled his thoughts.
"Hey, don't pass out on me," he could recognize the voice as saying. It sounded far off and muffled, like it was far away and not close to him. "Hey, a-are you okay!?"
He could feel someone else's hands on him. Someone else's arms wrapped around him and lifted him off the ground slightly, making his dizziness increase. An involuntary moan escaped him.
Blackness edged into his vision, and it wanted to take over him. A solution to the pain...he gladly let it take over.
"Hey, h-hang in there!" The voice sounded even softer, farther away, but still panicked.
"come on…"
"...Tails? Tails!"
A/N: Ahh, I'm so happy with how it turned out! It could definitely be better, though. I definitely take constructive criticism and reviews. Reviews are my food. My FF alter-ego survives on them. 'Kay? And dang it, I feel bad for Tails now. He's one of my favorite characters-he's just too cute and smart! X3 I have no clue when I'll next update, so don't be too keen. I got TJ studying and crap to do, so life for the next six weeks is gonna be h-e-double hockeysticks. *groan* Dang, I ramble a lot. Unfortunately, you might need to get used to it.
I stayed up super late writing this when I coulda been sleeping. Do you have any clue how little sleep I get?
P.S. Borrowed the "Mr. Tall, Dark, and Fluffy" thing from smileaway96. (Great author and very friendly, BTW!) Hope you don't mind, smileaway.