Author's note: I based Maria off of the main design I see all over the internet. I did not create it, and I have no clue who did, but props to them.
_Tikal p.o.v_
"You what?" Eggman asked me.
"I want to join your army," I said. I was currently in his base, wherever that was. I was absolutely terrified, and knew that no one was coming to rescue me. Knuckles and the others were going to fix the Master Emerald. I would have to escape by myself. So, I resulted to improvising.
"May I ask why?" Eggman said, very suspicious.
"I don't know what I was thinking, breaking the Master Emerald. If aiding you in finding the pieces is what it takes to put it back together, than I'm willing to do it."
"And how do I know this isn't a trick?"
"Well, no one's coming to save me. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if Knuckles had been so furious that he abandoned Chaos for helping me break it."
He looked me over. "Fine. Maria will take you to the training center." He walked down the hall, leaving me with the mysterious hedgehog. Her face was cream, but her arms, legs, and waist length hair were yellow. She wore a futuristic looking tailed dress, made of very shiny material. Maybe it was made entirely out of metal.
"Who are you?" Maria asked.
"I'm Tikal. I was born over four thousand years ago and locked myself and Chaos into the Master Emerald."
"Who's Chaos?" Maria asked as we started down the hall. "Was he the water monster that helped you guys?"
"Yes. He was the original guardian of the Master Emerald."
"What is so important about that emerald?"
I stared at her. "You don't know a lot about the subject, do you?"
She shook her head. "I don't know too much about anything, to be honest. When I was a girl, I stayed in a giant space station called the Space Colony ARK. I had never been to earth. After I became a hedgehog, I had been sealed away in a capsule by one of my grandfather's robots to keep me alive."
"You seem to know Shadow."
"Yes. He was my only friend up in space."
I nodded. "Well, if you need information about the Master Emerald, I can help you. What do you want to know?"
Maria thought for a moment. "Start back to when you were born, four thousand years ago."
_Knuckles p.o.v_
"Well that's quite a story," Tails said after I filled him in on what was going on. We were in his lab in the Mystic Ruins. Bokkun was currently chowing down on some cake, Chaos was thoroughly examining everything in the workshop, and Shadow was pacing restlessly.
"So, do you have anything that can help us?" I asked.
"Of course," Tails said, going threw his inventions. First, he pulled out six of his high-tech Bluetooth things. "These are so you all can communicate. The security should be good enough so Eggman can't trace them." Then he pulled out a small gun and a remote control. "This is a device that can control any of his robots. You just shoot the special bullets into the robot, then control them with the remote."
"Got it. Anything else?"
"Nope. I wish I could be more of a help, but this is all I got."
I grabbed one of his headsets and put it on. The thing made my ear uncomfortable, and the mouthpiece was really annoying. "How do I use this thing?"
"Simple. You press the button on the top, and it'll turn on and off."
I handed one to Bokkun and Chaos. Bokkun put his own on, but Chaos stared at it, intrigued by the technology. I then handed one to Shadow, who forcefully took it and put it on his head. I let it slide. "Bokkun, you ready to lead us to Eggman's fortress?"
He smiled. "You bet."
_Tikal p.o.v_
"So we're breaking out?" Maria asked.
"Yes." I loaded the gun again and fired at the target dummy. My aim was terrible. "I don't know how, but I do plan on getting out of here, and I'm going to start by learning to use this stupid weapon."
Maria pulled out a gun and fired two bullets. One went through his head, and the other through his heart. "It just takes practice. I've sworn I would never do that to a real person, but I learned how to keep Ivo happy."
"Who?"
"Eggman." She put her gun away. "I knew he was ambitious, but this is just not right. I may not seem it, but I can be fierce when needed. I'm ready to help stop him."
I nodded. I was about to fire again, when I paused. Maria was confused. "What?"
It was faint, but I could feel them. "There are pieces of the Master Emerald here."
_Knuckles p.o.v_
"Bokkun, do you even know where you're going?" I asked him.
"Of course. Why do you ask?"
"Because we've been wondering around this forest for five days."
"Okay, I may not know exactly, but I do know it's around here somewhere." We came out of the trees. "Found it!" We were in front of a giant cliff. Bokkun pointed at a small rock at the base of it. "That is the lock to get in."
I nodded, then looked at the others. "Okay, so after five days, who has a plan?"
"What?" Bokkun exclaimed. "You don't have a plan?"
"No, but I'm open for suggestions."
Shadow was the first to speak. "We can always break in, wreak havoc, get the girls and the Master Emerald pieces, and leave."
"True." I looked at the cliff. There was definitely pieces of the Master Emerald in there. "How about we forcefully break in, hide from the security until things quite down, then split up. Shadow, you and Chaos go and find Tikal and Maria while Bokkun and I find the pieces of the Master Emerald."
"Fine," he said, "now who's breaking down the door?"
Chaos marched straight up to the cliff face. He punched it rather hard, and his hand went straight through the wall. He then grabbed the hole and widened it. Standing aside, he indicated for us to go first. It took us a minute to register what he wanted. We were pretty stunned at the hole.
"Well, that's one way to do it," I said, walking through the very spacious hole. An alarm was going off. "Now everyone quickly hide." Shadow, him being black, just stuck himself in a dark corner, and he was gone. Chaos disappeared into a line of water along the wall. Bokkun and I clung to the bars on the ceiling.
Security guards were running around like crazy, trying to find us. These were the cheaper robots that would never find us. After a good twenty minutes of searching, the alarm stopped, and more robots came to fix the door. We waited a few more minutes after they left, then left our hiding places.
"Okay, what now?" Bokkun asked.
"We split up."
We all ran down the hallway together for a while, but when it split, Bokkun and I went left while Shadow and Chaos when right. This was it. Bokkun and I moved swiftly through the halls. We were getting closer to the pieces of the Master Emerald. I could feel it.
Just as we were about to reach them, something very strange happened. They started moving. I motioned for Bokkun to speed up, and we raced towards the pieces. It was a little risky moving so fast through the halls. I was afraid we were going to run into someone.
We did.
It was Shadow and Chaos, luckily. We all jumped when we almost collided. "Did you find the girls yet?" I asked them.
"No," Shadow said, "what about the pieces of the Master Emerald?"
"They're moving." I concentrated. "Wait, they're coming this way."
We all turned down the hall that I sensed the pieces. Two girls were swiftly walking down that hall. "Chaos! Knuckles! You're all here!"
Tikal raced forward. "I thought you guys were going to go look for the other pieces of the Master Emerald. Why would you come save me?"
We all looked at Shadow, giving Tikal her answer. He was staring at Maria, and she was staring back. They both took a few steps forward, then rushed into each other's arms. "Shadow," Maria said. "I missed you so much."
"Me too," he said. They were sideways, so I could see his face, and the tear that was rolling down it. "You aren't allowed to die again. Do you understand?"
"I was infused with your blood; I'm not sure if I can." She smiled at all of us. "You guys are so sweet, coming to save us. Tikal told me your names, but who is who?"
"I'm Knuckles," I said, not meeting her eyes. I wasn't very good with girls. "Bokkun's the small one, and the blue one is Chaos." I turned my attention to Tikal. "Do you guys know where the pieces of the Master Emerald are?"
She held up three green shards. "Got it covered. I also found these," She pulled out two smaller emeralds, one yellow and one blue.
"What does Eggman have chaos emeralds for?" I asked, picking them up.
"I would love to tell you."
We all whirled around to see Eggman standing there, smiling evilly. "So, you managed to get back pieces of your lousy Emerald. That's fine, since I got what I was truly after with them. I could still use the Master Emerald, but it won't be too big of a setback if I don't have it."
"What are you planning, Eggman?" I said.
"You mean what was my plan. The part of the plan you're most interested in is complete. I shall introduce you all to my newest assistants." He stepped aside, and Tikal yelped with shock.
Standing there was what looked like an anti-Tikal. She was blue, and wore what I remembered to be the armor of the Nocturnus clan. Her toothy smile was harsh, matching her harsh green eyes. She held her helmet at her side. Even with these differences, the resemblance between her and Tikal was striking.
"Let me introduce Latik, my new controller for the Master Emerald."
She smiled. "So I'm replacing her? What a bore. Give me something interesting to do."
"Hush," Eggman said. "I also have a new guardian." A pool of black water formed at his side. "Meet Chaos B."
The water rose up into a mirror image of Chaos, but was pure black, his eyes a piercing orange. He scowled at Chaos, and he scowled back. The two looked ready to have at it.
"So, to answer your question, Knuckles," Eggman said, "I plan to rid myself of you, Tikal, and Chaos and put these two in your place, giving me full control over the Master Emerald, which gives me control over the chaos emeralds."
"How did you do this?" I asked.
"Simple. I first took Tikal's memories that were imprinted on the pieces of the Master Emerald, then created Latik. Chaos B. is simply liquefied negative chaos energy; a perfect replica of Chaos."
"Well you aren't getting them today," Maria said, pulling out a rather bulky gun. "I trusted you, my own cousin, and you betrayed me. I will do whatever is in my power to stop you."
"You think you can stop us with that puny weapon?" Latik said. She held up her hand, which held two throwing spikes.
"No!" I yelled, pushing Maria out of the way. Latik had expected something like this, though. One sank into my right arm while the other sunk into Maria's shoulder.
"Do you really expect to win?"
"Yep," Maria said, pointing her gun shakily at them. "We didn't just find two chaos emeralds. We found three."
His eyes widened, and she pulled the trigger. A huge flash of light washed over them, and they seemed to be frozen in place. "Run!" Maria said.
We all took off down the hall, Maria and Tikal leading. "How long will they be frozen?" I asked.
"Three minutes," Maria said. "That'll be just enough time for our escape."
They lead us into a large room full of aircrafts. They lead us to a large blue and orange one. "This is my own creation," Maria said, "so Eggman should have a harder time tracing it." She hopped into the pilot's seat, and we all climbed in. Her hands flew over the controls, and though she was grimacing from the pain, we were soon we were off the ground. The ceiling opened up, and we all flew out of the cliff, away from Eggman's fortress and his horrifying new minions.