Chapter 4 - The Ultimate Shrine

As the stare continued, the breeze rustled the palm tree leaves, the note, and all of the hedgehogs' quills.

"Hey, Silver. Long time, no see" said Sonic. "What brings you here?" During this, Shadow thought to himself: 'Oh, great… Silver! As if one other inferior hedgehog was enough. Now I have to be stuck with another (!) Why can't I be the only hedgehog…' His train of thought was interrupted by Sonic. "… Right Shadow? Shadow. Shadow!" he said. "Uh?!" Shadow replied, dazed. "Did you hear what I just said?" "Uh… Yeh! Yeh." Shadow replied abruptly. "You didn't, did you (?!)" said Sonic, thinking 'typical Shadow (!)' "No! So! Why should I care?!" Shadow retorted. Sonic sighed. "Silver was basically talking about old times and how you went crazy once!" Silver and Sonic chuckled. "No I didn't!" Shadow yelled, looming over them, "that only happened because I was frenzied about… well you know" said Shadow, the last three words sounding mellow. "Yeh, we know!" they both replied simultaneously, still snickering.

After the gentle wind breezed by again, Tails asked the question that was bearing down on everyone's mind. "Silver?" he piped up, "What's with the note in your hand?" 'Finally. I thought no one would ever ask.' Silver thought. He explained to the group about the note. He said that he came back from his future to visit Blaze – who had also come back – to see what she was up to. While walking on the shore of the Emerald Hill Zone, he found a piece of crumpled paper lying in the sand. "Huh? What's that?" Silver said (in the memory), and picked it up. The piece of paper foretells 'of a mystical Emerald… more powerful than all Chaos Emeralds seven… stronger than the Master Emerald.' "What could it mean?" Silver asked himself. "I better tell Sonic about this and see if he knows anything."

"… And that's how I got here" Silver finished.

"What's the Ultimate Emerald?" asked Chaos, out of turn, "I've lived for thousands of years and I've never heard anything of this 'mystical' Emerald before!" "Beats me" said Knuckles, "but we better go look for it in case it has anything to do with Eggman." 'Ultimate Emerald, huh?' thought Shadow. 'Hmm…'

"Any other clues about the Ultimate Emerald then, Silver?" enquired Sonic. "Nope. None yet" replied Silver. "What do you suppose we do know?" "We go look for it!" Tails spoke up. "Good idea, Tails!" Sonic said, cheerfully, "Let's go!" "But where?" Chaos interjected, forcefully, "the only thing we know about the Ultimate Emerald is what it is. What good's that; I ask you?!" "That's a good point" Shadow said. "If we don't know where it is, how are we supposed to find it?" "Well. It's our lucky day!" Knuckles proudly boasted. "Fortunately, I have an Emerald Detector on me!" "Emerald Detector, huh?" Shadow enquired, "where did you get it?" "When Eggman stole the Master Emerald, I managed to sneak out his Emerald Detector that was in his Eggmobile." "Now that we have a way to find the Ultimate Emerald, we can now search for it." said Silver, excited at this prospect. "Yeh, let's do it!" said Chaos, also excited. All the others murmured optimistic comments.

"Hey Knuckles. Can you pass me the Emerald Detector? I'm gonna find out the co-ordinates of its position so we can find it." said Tails "Yeh, sure" Knuckles replied. He handed the Emerald Detector over to Tails so he could perform his task. When he had done this, he handed the Detector back to Knuckles, and said "The Ultimate Emerald appears to be in a shrine – about 500km (311 miles) – away from here, on the other side of the planet." "You expect us to travel all the way to there just for some stupid Emerald!" Shadow burst out, sounding annoyed.

"Uhh… yeh (!)" Sonic said, sarcastically. "If we don't, we'll all be dead!" "Can we stop arguing and get on with it!" Silver interrupted. "If Eggman gets the Ultimate Emerald, this will affect my future as well. Who knows what it'll do?" "Alright! Let's just shut up and get in the Tornado!" Tails said, angrily – frustrated at all the quarrelling. So, everyone clambered in the Tornado and set off.

After about 200km, there were some strong side winds – creating the effects of turbulence. Everyone was shook side-to-side. At about the third side wind, due to the ferocity of it, Silver's left back quill dug into Shadow; whose right shoe dug into Sonic; who fell onto Knuckles; whose knuckles, on his left hand, pierced into Chaos' torso; who tumbled on Tails. (Author note: Quite a painful experience for all!) A number of ouch's and argh's ensued. "All right! Whose fault was that?!" Shadow asked, angrily (typical!). "It was no-one's fault! Alright!" retorted Tails, after he got back in his seat. "It was just a strong side wind. There was nothing we could do about it. Now siddown!" Shadow tutted, irritably, shaking his head.

Two hours had passed and they were now only 30km away. Everyone was pretty board, although they did play Sonic Monopoly for about 40 minutes – before Shadow conned Knuckles out of the Master Emerald for Star Light Zone and two houses on Angel Island – when everyone got annoyed and fed up.

"Hang on guys, we're almost there!" Tails announced. There was a blinking emerald shaped light on the Tornado's radar, indicating just that.

As the minutes whiled away, the shape got bigger. Then, on the horizon, they saw, what appeared to be, a larger version of the Master Emerald's shrine.

"What's that?" Chaos asked. "It looks like the shrine of the Master Emerald, only larger. It's vast!" Knuckles replied, staring in awe. "That must be where the Ultimate Emerald is" Silver said, "the Ultimate Shrine." "Wow. It's so gigantic. And I though Knuckles' ego was big!" "Why you…" retorted Knuckles. "Alright, cool it guys" said Tails. "I'm about to land. You can have your little fight outside!" he snickered. 'This ought to be good' thought Shadow.

When Tails landed the Tornado III, Sonic and Knuckles were the first to step out – ready for their fight. Knuckles' anger was prevalent in his eyes, while Sonic was calm and contempt. "You ready to lose, Sonic?" "I know you will!" replied Sonic. Their fight took place near the Tornado, on a patch of dry clay. They were about to start when a small dust storm flew in. "I can't fight in this!" said Knuckles, angry at the fact that he couldn't knock the 'living daylights' out of Sonic. "Me neither" Sonic replied. "Let's leave it 'til later, OK?" "Yeh, alright" said Knuckles, gloomy. The dust storm left and everyone was staring at the Ultimate Shrine. There was nothing to say. Just the fact of the sheer size of the Shrine spoke more than words.

With no-one doing anything, Silver decided to walk towards the Ultimate Shrine first. He was closely followed by Tails, then Sonic and Knuckles, next was Chaos, and finally Shadow. They all went inside.