Downward Spiral: Ch. 2
Angel Island
Upon a far, distant island in the vast land of Mobius, a spell of peace seemed to have spread from the inner to the outer boundaries of this isle. Floating several hundred yards above sea level, this landmass was home to lush forestry and greenery; an open plain circling one of the island's perimeters. It was there that the six, brilliantly radiant chaos emeralds sparked; arranged in a neat circle around another, much larger master emerald that was placed upon a stone altar with steps leading down to the grassy field. On one of these steps sat an undisturbed, quiet figure; lazily perched with light from the warmly shining sun dawning upon his closed eyes.
"Now only if that pestering bat doesn't ruin it…" Knuckles thought to himself, opening one eye as he vigilantly scanned the clear blue skies. "Though lately, she's been pretty quiet…"
And he was right. Almost immediately after the victory against Eggman, the mischievous bat had mysteriously departed with the hope and intent of searching the landscape for lost treasure. Knuckles might have joined her, and why not? There was no more worry from the evil scientist; no one else to pose a threat to the Sonic team. But Knuckles knew that in the back of his mind, the last chaos emerald remained hidden. Normally possessing a cautious personality, he knew it was his duty to make sure that ALL of the emeralds where in its rightful place; even if it meant remaining in this spot for years. Which wasn't a bad thing after all; Knuckles generally liked to be left alone anyways.
As the red echidna sighed to himself, slowly settling back into a resting position, another dark thought tugged at the back of his mind; one that had been bothering him for a while now, though he didn't know if he really wanted to know the answer. How had Eggman managed to turn the chaos emeralds into a demented state, and then use it to power himself into a dark form? Raymond and Eggman himself had both revealed the secretive, behind-the-back experimenting of the chaos emeralds to possibly expose further, valuable properties of the unfathomable gemstones. And the intention was undoubtedly for the purpose of evil, in which case Eggman had succeeded; though he was somehow foiled by the ever so mysterious Raymond. Who was planning to visit in a little while, if Knuckles' memory didn't fail him…
"What's going on…?" Knuckles whispered into the quiet scenery; receiving no answer in reply. He felt as if he should feel safe; Eggman was gone, wasn't he? But Knuckles had the feeling that he was part of another, much larger design; one that he had no control over. He just couldn't see what purpose he played in it, or how it was going to end. All Knuckles could do was hope that things would turn out alright; maybe if he found that last chaos emerald, he'd finally feel at peace. Things might have seemed serene now, but Knuckles well knew the phrase "quiet before the storm"…
"You know, exactly a month ago…" Raymond started thoughtfully; his voice suddenly breaking the silence as Knuckles opened his eyes to see the red fox perched upon a higher step; calmly gazing out into the vast ocean. He had appeared out of nowhere as Knuckles was busy thinking to himself..
"…We brought Cosmo back at this very spot." Knuckles finished, already knowing the answer to Raymond's uncompleted sentence before he could complete it. "Thanks to that peculiar diamond of yours." He added, pointing at the trademark diamond hanging around the red fox's neck.
"AND," Raymond started with a smirk, his eyes finally meeting those of Knuckles'. "As I recall, someone didn't believe me."
"Even though I ended up helped you and Tails anyways," Knuckles countered in a friendly manner, turning his attention back to the sea as he tried to recall that fateful, stormy day. "Without me, you two might have still been here today; trying to get that diamond to work."
"Maybe," Raymond smirked again. "We'll never know, won't we?"
Knuckles slowly nodded, a thought suddenly forming on the tip of his tongue. "That reminds me by the way; how does that diamond of yours work anyways? Does it use chaos energy, or something not from this world?"
"Well, like I told you," Raymond started, though seemed as if he was still trying to figure out the mysterious diamond as well. "I was told that when combined with the powers of the Master Emerald, it could be used to bring people back from the dead. It also gives the wearer a sense of immortality as their souls are trapped within if they are killed with possession of this item." And here, the red fox paused; searching for words. "Unfortunately, I really don't understand how it works though; I just took it for granted and somehow, whether it was by magic or luck, I brought Cosmo back. And for the type of power it uses, I would suspect chaos energy. The Master Emerald possesses the force needed to fuel the operation, and the diamond channels it into the power required to defy death..."
"Does it only work once? You told us that it was used in the past countless times…" Knuckles asked; recalling Raymond's explanation of his background before arriving to Mobius.
"I don't know either…" Raymond stared down at the cracked diamond hanging around his neck. "Though, for some reason, I would suspect that the power the diamond possesses has run dry, though possibly only temporarily…"
"So, it has the potential to work again?" Knuckles gazed at the obsidian-black diamond with intrigue.
"I hope so…" Raymond answered softly, suddenly hit with an aching pang at the memories of his lost one.
Knuckles, noticing this, gave a comforting smile. "You know, I've heard that if you shoot for the moon and miss, at least you'll fall among the stars…" He said, reciting a quote he had learned from a long time ago. Something he had picked up as one of the proverbs of his wise ancestors.
Raymond dully nodded. "And I've heard that if you shoot for the moon and miss, the harder you fall…" As the red echidna respectfully remained silent, the red fox seemed to shake it off. "It's alright though; what's done is done." Raymond turned back to his companion with an optimistic smile. "We can never turn back the pages of time; though we may wish to relive a happy moment or say goodbye just one last time, we never can because the sands of time continue to fall, and we can't turn the hourglass over. True love doesn't have a happy ending, because true love never ends. Letting go is just one way of saying 'I love you'…"
"Yeah…" Knuckles agreed as he leaned back and for the third time, enjoyed the peaceful scenery; watching the azure sky in silence. He might be part of a larger, uncontrollable design, but for the moment, he was going to enjoy every little detail of it. Whatever fate had in store for him, he was going to be optimistic. "True hope dwells on the possible," Knuckles thought to himself as he closed his eyes in undisturbed thought. "Even when life seems to be a plot written by someone who wants to see how much adversity we can overcome.." He would have added more to that thought, but at that moment, the fate of Mobius and the destiny of the Sonic team would change forever.
Suddenly, the six chaos emeralds began to glow; pulsating dazzling combinations of colors and light. As Knuckles and Raymond snapped out of their own thoughts when they noticed something was amiss, a large aura of energy pulsed across the entire island; so powerful that it knocked the duo over and made the surrounding grass bow down to its will as the green strands were flattened.
"What's going on?" Knuckles asked in a loud, panicked voice as he regained his balance; eerily similar to the same question he had asked just a couple minutes earlier.
"I… look!" Raymond pointed at the glowing chaos emeralds that were shooting beams of energy and light everywhere in all directions, nearly missing the two. As Knuckles and Raymond took refugee under the side of the Master Emerald alter with white-hot lasers scorching the field near their feet, just like that, the spectacular aura died away and the chaos emeralds returned to their dull, normal state.
"What… the…" Knuckles breathed; completely in shock of the unholy and astonishing exploit the chaos emeralds had done.
"Something's wrong…" Raymond pointed out, turning around to see if the event had any other effect. "Just three weeks and already it looks like Eggman's prowling around somewhere…" He deduced, as no one would be able to accomplish such a feat of meddling with the chaos emeralds like that.
"Grr…" Knuckles growled, annoyed that the scientist had the mettle to mess with them even after being fairly defeated. And at that moment, the echidna suddenly remembered to ask his companion of the question that had been bothering him for so long. "What exactly did Eggman discover about the chaos emeralds?"
"I don't know," Raymond said as Knuckles arched an eyebrow in skepticism. "But Tails… I gave him access to all the information of Eggman's research. I was hoping he'd get around to sorting it out, but I guess we never really found the need to…"
"Well, we obviously need to now!" Knuckles insisted, staring back at the perplexing chaos emeralds to make sure they wouldn't undergo another dangerous change. "Let's hurry to Tails then if Eggman is really back… but… Sonic!" Knuckles grabbed his head in frustration. "He was supposed to stop by! I forgot!"
"What? Why?" Raymond asked in utter confusion, wondering if something he didn't know about was going on.
"Sonic said he'd located a strange aura of chaos energy somewhere in the southwest. We think it might be the last chaos emerald…" Knuckles explained as the two of them realized the dilemma they were in.
"Let's go after Sonic first then," Raymond decided after a few seconds of thought. "If anyone can help us fight another possible Eggman attack, he's the best candidate. It makes sense to collect all of the chaos emeralds anyways..."
"And then we can stop by at Tails' place." Knuckles agreed. "Sounds like a plan; let's go!" As the two of them hopped off of the altar towards the mainland, the red echidna could only wonder in awe at how quickly things had just changed…
Tails' house:
At the same moment, the yellow kitsune; having just returned from his workshop after completing the finishing touches and paintings to his plane, suddenly felt a tremor beneath his feet. As Tails nearly fell over; reaching out with one hand to steady himself upon the doorframe leading to the interior of his house, he heard Cosmo scream in fear.
"Cosmo?" Tails called her name out in alarm; worrying for the safety of his love. He instantly picked himself up and ran inside the house to find the plant girl sprawled on the floor with pieces of broken glass surrounding her bare feet.
Cosmo, upon noticing the concerned, yellow fox, started to explain with worry spreading across her face. "Tails, I…"
"Shh.. it's alright," Tails said, thankful that she wasn't hurt. As he helped Cosmo up to her feet, Tails deduced that the minor earthquake had thrown her off balance while supposedly in the act of bringing a glass of water to him, explaining the broken glass. He'd clean it up later…
"What was that?" Cosmo asked in distress, stepping closer towards Tails as he protectively spread his twin tails around her body. She looked up at the kitsune with wonder and panic in her eyes as Tails sought a soothing answer.
"It's probably just an earthquake," Tails said as he made his way over to the phone in case any of his friends had felt the same tremor. "Nothing to worry about; it's gone now." He smiled at Cosmo while dialing Amy's number at the same time, wondering if she were home or out chasing Sonic.
However, the phone shrilly rang with another called on the line before Tails could click "call". Supposing that it was another of his friends who had decided to try the same thing, Tails answered the call, holding it up to his ear while searching for a broom in a nearby closet. "Hello?"
"Tails!" The yellow fox had to briefly hold the phone away from his ear as the loud voice of Knuckles rang throughout the small closet. "Are you there?"
"Hold on," Tails stooped down to pick up a stray broom. "Since when do you have a phone?"
"I'm using Raymond's Com-Link device," Knuckles hurriedly explained, as if in anxiety. "You know, the one you gave him during the war against Eggman?"
"Oh, right." Tails backed out of the closet towards the scattered pieces of broken glass; started to sweep it into a pile. "Sorry, I forgot. Go on.."
"Well," Knuckles paused and started to mutter something inaudible as if he were talking to someone else by his side. "Do you still have that device Raymond gave you after we defeated Eggman?"
"Are you talking about the USB?" Tails tried to remember if he still had that small, black microchip. Maybe it was on his desk in his workshop… "I think so; why?"
"Well use it to find out what Eggman discovered about the chaos emeralds! Because the six we have are acting up, and we think Eggman's back! But we're busy right now trying to find Sonic after he left to search for the seventh chaos emerald."
"Wait, Sonic?" Tails remembered Sonic's brief visit earlier that day; how he had seemed to leave in a hurry. "He found the seventh chaos emerald?"
"He thinks he has," This time, it was Raymond's voice. "Knuckles said he and Sonic found a source of strange chaos energy located somewhere in the Southwest."
"So, if Sonic was looking for it, why isn't he back?" Tails asked naively as he finished discarding the broken glass in the wastebasket.
"That's the problem; none of us have seen Sonic since he left. And some of us haven't even seen him at all today."
"Do you think something happened to him?" Tails wondered as he placed the broom back in the closet and started towards his workshop.
"Yeah, and I think it has something to do with Eggman as well." Raymond flatly answered.
"Okay well, I'll start to examine and analyze all the research Eggman managed to compile onto his microchip; hopefully containing information about the consequences and results of his tampering. If we're lucky, it'll reveal the answer to your predicament."
There was a slight pause as Tails sat down at his desk, fished out the USB, and plugged it into his computer memory port. "Umm… yeah… you do that… Thanks." The call ended abruptly; leaving Tails wondering what was going on. Things that had seemed so quiet and peaceful before were starting to look cloudy…
An hour later found the audacious duo of Raymond and Knuckles near the place Sonic had suggested they look for the missing gemstone, though the echidna swore he didn't sense anything different about the area except for a gut feeling of danger and an inclination towards high caution. A grassy field surrounded the two on all sides, though instead of the grass barely brushing the ankles as it normally would, this field was full of wild shrubbery and grass that extended well over chest height, making it difficult to view the entire landscape more than several yards away in any given direction. With the two of them tearing through the field for a while now, looking for their missing friend, the mutual feeling shared was that of worry and concern.
"That damn hedegehog.. Where the hell is he?" Knuckles growled as he realized the longer they spent here meant the higher risk of leaving his beloved master and chaos emeralds unprotected.
"Sonic?" Raymond cupped his hands to his mouth and called out; not even receiving his echo as a reply. Brushing the tall grass away in front of him, the red fox continued to trod through the field as Knuckles followed behind, but immediately spotted something.
"Over there!" Knuckles stooped down to pick up a tangled bouquet of roses. In doing so, he could faintly make out a few outlines of a figure's foot in the warm soil. "I think I've found something!" He exclaimed excitedly.
Raymond was at his side, already staring at the footsteps while Knuckles stood back up with the flowers in one hand. "Sonic might not be one to pick flowers," The echidna started. "But someone's definitely been here before. Maybe if we follow their footsteps…" Knuckles gestured out towards the open plain. "It can lead us to the last emerald.. And hopefully Sonic…"
"Okay," Raymond nodded consent as he tried to figure out what direction the footsteps were pointing. "Let's try over there." He pointed at a low outcropping of forestry in the distance; barely several hundred yards away. The dark, foreboding woods seemed to intimidate the duo; menacing with the darkness within.
Cautiously, looking for any other signs of a previous presence in the area, Knuckles and Raymond both headed over to the foliage, grim expressions clouding their faces. Maybe something had happened to Sonic? Maybe there was another person who had set the blue hedgehog up for a trap… But whatever the case, the two of them were going to find out.
"Careful now," Raymond stooped under the outreaching branches of the oak trees, clearing the rest away with his hands as he tried to peer into the utter darkness. Not even the comforting sound of crickets or any insects reaching his ears. It was late fall; almost wintertime. The trees had already lost their leaves, which had been swept up in the gales of wind and scattered all over the forest floor, making a colorful blanket of maroon, wine-red, and golden yellow. However, the density of the trees were so thick that even with only bare branches, one couldn't even see but a few yards in any given direction.
"We'll never find anyone at this rate…" Knuckles muttered darkly to himself, wishing things weren't so cryptic and mysterious. Sonic could just be taking a nap this whole time; he'd never understand that carefree hedgehog.
"Shh!" Raymond shushed the pestering echidna, cupping one hand to his ear as he motioned for silence. "Did you hear something?"
Knuckles remained silent for only a couple seconds before shrugging. "No, why?"
"I could have sworn I heard someone else…" Raymond started to move around with more purpose and determination as the echidna struggled to keep up through the forest.
"Do you think—" And suddenly, as Raymond cleared away another branch, the two of them found themselves staring right at the beaten body of their missing companion; lying on the forest floor with his eyes shut.
"Sonic!" Raymond rushed over while Knuckles stood a ways off; making sure that whoever could have done such a thing was nowhere around. "Oh great…" The red fox tilted the blue hedgehog's head up as Sonic started to hazily open his eyes; taking in the surroundings.
"Wha… Oh, it's you guys… What's up..?" Sonic tried to manage a grin, but instead winced in pain as he clutched his left shoulder.
"Do ya think next time, you'd let us know what you're planning to do?" Knuckles dryly asked after he was satisfied no one was around the proximity of the trio.
Sonic's face was that of a child who'd been caught stealing candy on Halloween. "Uh, maybe?" He grimaced a little, then slowly propped himself up on his elbows.
"What happened?" Raymond asked as he briefly surveyed the amount of damage Sonic's body had taken. Nothing too serious, now that he took a closer look, but there was a good-sized bruise on Sonic's head.
"Well… you see…" Sonic started until the impatient echidna cut the two off; unwilling to stick around while the imminent threat of potential danger was still lingering in the area.
"Whatever, you can tell us later. Let's just get you to medical help," Knuckles muttered as he and Raymond helped Sonic up to his feet, each of them taking one of Sonic's arm around their shoulders as they helped him walk.
"Yeah, alright, let's…" And as Raymond suddenly turned around to venture back from where he and Knuckles had entered from, he found himself staring face to face into the cold, steely eyes of his arch-nemisis, Metal Raymond.
