When Talon woke the chao, Chimera's reaction was to jump out of bed and do a dance. "Aliens! Yes! Yes! Yes!"
"Grow up," Zinc snarled at him. "They could probably kill us all without blinking."
"Well, we're going to find out how much they bleed," laughed Chimera, running toward the kitchen.
Talon rolled his eyes and followed him with Zinc pattering at his heels.
"Talon," said Zinc softly, "what if they come here, to the house? What if they blow it up?"
"We won't let them get close enough," said Talon grimly.
There was not much fresh fruit left for breakfast. Despite being bored all day the previous day, none of them had done any chores, notably the one that involved picking more fruit for future meals. They ate hot cereal boiled haphazardly on the stove, and disguised the too-sweet taste of the overripe pineapple and mango with it.
"The aliens are in Sandopolis," Talon told his friends as they ate. He picked at his breakfast, himself. His stomach had curled into a knot and he could hardly get anything down. "They're looking for the tunnels that go down to Lava Reef. Once they get there, Hidden Palace isn't hard to find."
Chimera grinned, showing all his teeth. "Well, I'm going to crush them, set them on fire, and make them suffer."
"Giving you a Super emerald is a bad idea, you know," said Zinc.
Chimera stuck his tongue out at him. "Zephyer said I could, so there!"
"What do you want me to do?" asked Silver.
"Collect rocks," said Talon.
Silver looked confused. "Rocks?"
Talon tapped his forehead. "Mind bullets."
Silver's face lit up. "Oh yeah!"
Ten minutes later the four of them snuck out of the house and down to the teleporter. No aliens in sight so far. They warped down to Hidden Palace, and Talon escorted Zinc and Chimera into the emerald chamber. Silver waited outside, but peered in through the doorway in curiosity.
The Master Emerald sat on a six-foot wide pedestal in the center of the room.
Seven pedestals ringed it, each topped with a glowing gem the size of a bicycle tire. One pedestal was empty, Silver noticed.
Chimera ran to the pedestal with the red Super Emerald, and Talon grudgingly lifted him up and set him on top of it. Chimera flopped face-down on the gem's top and tried his best to hug it. "Oh yes, you beauty," he crooned, "give me that power!" He melted into white light at once. He expanded and stretched, a tail sprouting, legs and arms lengthening, neck stretching out. When the light faded, Chimera had transformed into a maroon dragon the size of an elephant.
He looked down at himself and unclenched his claws from around the Super Emerald's pedestal, which was now empty. "Oh YEAH!" he bellowed.
"Amateur," snorted Zinc. Talon set him on top of the white Super Emerald. Zinc knelt and stroked its top without speaking. His body vanished into white light, too. He grew until he was fifteen feet tall, with long, heavy legs and arms. When the light drained away, he was a giant silver robot with an echidna head. His two horns had become long jagged blades.
Chimera grinned at Zinc. "Wanna see who'd win in a fight?"
"Please," said Zinc, turning and walking toward the exit. He had to drop to all fours and clumsily crawl out through the doorway. Silver backed away and stared with awe and new respect.
"You're such a klutz," sneered Chimera. "Watch this!" He lunched forward, hit the floor on his belly, tucked his arms and legs to his sides, and slid over the smooth floor and right out the door.
"Showoff," said Zinc, stepping on the teleporter. He teleported, but the beam seemed to have trouble moving him. There was a five second delay before he actually vanished. Undeterred, Chimera jumped on the lens immediately afterward. Talon and Silver watched with interest as all of him vanished into the light, even his long tail.
"I wondered if it would get cut off or something," said Silver.
"No such luck," said Talon. "Come on. And don't get too close to Chimera. He tried to eat Knuckles last time."
"But isn't Knuckles like his parent?" asked Silver, shocked.
Talon nodded. "It was a really bad fight. Chimera hasn't had an emerald since then." He stepped onto the teleporter, and Silver followed him.
On the surface, Chimera had spread his wings and was shaking them out. They were as wide as his body was long, and the membranes were marked with black stripes. "Ooo, pretty," said Chimera, inspecting both. He jumped in the air,
beating his wings, then fell and landed on his hind legs. "I need to get the hang of this again," he growled. He tried a running start, leaving deep footprints on the lawn, and this time managed to stay airborne for a hundred feet. One wing clipped a tree and he crashed to the ground. They watched him struggle to his feet, roaring, "I'm all right!"
"Now who's the klutz?" said Zinc softly, and Talon and Silver snickered.
Talon looked at Zinc's knee joint, which was level with his head. "How is it possible for you to have bolts?" Talon asked him. "You're not man-made."
"I just look like it," said Zinc. "It's kind of like being made of armor. The nice thing is, I can take loads of damage, and I won't feel it until I turn back into a chao."
Talon suddenly wished that he had the green chaos emerald handy.
"Hey, want a ride?" said Zinc, crouching down. Talon looked at Silver,
shrugged, and climbed up on Zinc's broad shoulder-plate. Silver climbed onto the other one, and Zinc stood up with a grin. "Let's go, shall we?"
His first step almost jarred Talon loose. He grabbed onto the edge of the plate and hung on. Each of Zinc's footsteps felt like sitting on a jackhammer.
Talon looked over at Silver to see the hedgehog quietly levitating himself an inch above Zinc's shoulder. Lucky.
After a few minutes, Talon gasped, "Thanks Zinc, I'll just fly." He hardly had enough breath for the activation words, but once his shoes lit up and he stepped onto the air beside Zinc, he felt much better. He flew along beside the robot, panting. Zephyer had never ridden with Zinc, and he thought he knew why.
They cut across the hills north of Marble Gardens, aiming for the mountains above Sandopolis, where the aliens were working. Chimera kept practicing flying, until Zinc asked sarcastically how he would fight aliens when he was too tired to move. After that Chimera stayed on the ground. He walked ahead of them, and every time they neared the crest of a hill, he slunk to the top to see if the aliens were in sight.
At last there came a hill that Chimera where sat still and ducked low, and did not move as they caught up to him. "There they are," he growled.
Silver, Talon and Zinc climbed just high enough to see over the hilltop. In the distance the desert plain stretched away to the edge of the Floating Island, all sand and scrub brush. The mountains here were barren and rocky,
starting up out of the desert floor in great tumbled mounds. Parked among the rocks was a disk-shaped ship about fifty feet long. Moving to and fro in a line from it to the mountains were aliens. The four Mobians were close enough to see the aliens' bulbous, insectoid eyes, their black, scaly skin, and their oddly red hands and feet. Their line stretched up into the rocks, where they had already beaten a path. Somewhere out of sight was a rumble of falling rocks and a growl of machinery.
"They're digging," said Zinc.
"Let's take out their ship," said Chimera, baring all his teeth in a grin. "I wonder how they taste?" Before anyone could stop him, he bounded off the hilltop, spread his wings, and glided down toward the ship.
The nearby aliens spun and stared at him. Some unslung weapons from across their backs and aimed them at the dragon.
Silver squinted.
The alien weapons bent in half. A glowing purple substance spurted from each one, and the aliens dropped the broken weapons and jumped back from the purple stuff in dismay.
"Plasma," said Zinc, nodding. "Don't let them hit you. It's a superheated liquid-like stuff, and it'll melt right through you."
Chimera landed on top of the ship, drew a deep breath, and blew a red jet of flame down onto the ship's top. Nothing happened. He drew another deep breath and blew more fire on it.
"Armor's too thick," remarked Zinc.
"If he wasn't sitting on it, I could knock it off its landing gear," said Silver.
Talon pointed at the ship's underside. "Look, more are coming out." A door had opened from the ship's belly, and more aliens were swarming out like angry ants. These aliens were accompanied by another sort, these almost as big as Zinc, and carrying long, zig-zag energy swords and thick tubes that looked quite like bazookas.
"My turn," said Zinc, lifting Silver off his shoulder and setting him on the ground. He strode over the hill and down toward the aliens. Some of the big ones--Black Oaks, Talon remembered--turned to face Zinc. Others ran off and stood at a distance, aiming their bazookas at Chimera.
Chimera laughed at them. He leaped into the air, beating his wings, then dropped into the midst of the Black Oaks. Hand to hand fighting broke out, and Chimera roared in excitement. He slashed aliens with his claws, whipped their feet out from under them with his tail. He reared up on his hind legs, grabbed one Oak by the head, and bit down.
A second later Chimera flung the alien away with an outraged scream. He opened and closed his jaws rapidly, drooling and shaking his head.
"Think they're poisonous, like a toad is?" asked Talon.
"What's a toad?" asked Silver. He had an intense look on his face,
concentrating fiercely on something. Talon looked around to see what Silver was moving, and jumped. Floating up behind them, hidden from the aliens' view by the hill, was a floating rockslide. Hundreds of rocks, ranging from pebbles to boulders, were floating toward them like a fleet of balloons. Jagged, heavy balloons.
"Get down," said Silver, sweat trickling down his muzzle.
Talon dropped flat, and the rocks sailed over his head in a cloud. Sliver gathered them at the crest of the hill, both arms stretched out in front of him. Then he waved his hands, and the rocks scattered, each one pelting toward an alien.
The large rocks knocked the smaller aliens down. The Black Oaks were knocked staggering, and a few dropped their weapons. The flying pebbles tore through their leathery hides like bullets. Talon stared in disbelief as glowing yellow blood oozed from their wounds. Where it fell to the ground, it smouldered and smoked. "What are they, acid?" he said.
Silver wiped the sweat off his face, making his wild hair stand up more than usual. "I don't know. That should have killed them."
Chimera leaped on the nearest wounded Oaks and knocked several of them down.
At the same time, Zinc strode into their midst, swinging his metal fists.
Talon squinted. It looked like Zinc's hands had become sword blades. Aliens ran from him and whirled to fire weapons at him. Plasma splashed his torso,
and he roared in pain as his armor melted. Smoke wreathed him, along with the odor of hot metal.
"Silver, look," Talon hissed, pointing. The alien spacecraft was lifting off,
its door closing and feet lifting to tuck into the seamless paneling.
"Oh no you don't," growled Silver. He thrust both hands at it. The ship lurched backward and tipped, its edge scraping the ground. It nearly flipped onto its top, but fired all its stabilizers and managed to pull itself level again.
Three of the Black Oaks had finally noticed Silver and Talon. They raised their bazookas and aimed.
"Silver, look out!" Talon yelled, pointing.
The bazookas fired. Silver whipped up both hands, and the rockets halted five feet away from them. He waved. The rockets flipped around toward the Oaks who fired them.
"Wait Silver," said Talon, "shoot them at the ship."
Silver grinned. He turned the rockets and hurled them at the UFO like a handful of darts. They impacted on the rim.
To their complete surprise the ship exploded. Purple fire burst from it all along its edge, the rest of the explosion held inside by its own armor. Zinc and Chimera both bolted clear, knocking over aliens as they went. Silver and Talon dropped flat and covered their heads as ship fragments flew over them,
bouncing across the ground.
When they looked around again, the ship was burning and producing a huge plume of black smoke, and the aliens nearest it were lying around it on the ground,
probably dead. There were only ten aliens left, all small ones, and one Black Oak. They stared at their burning ship for a moment, then turned and ran for the mountain.
"Should we stop them?" asked Silver.
Talon slowly climbed to his feet. "No, leave them be. We can worry about them later. Zinc and Chimera are hurt."
Knuckles arrived home that evening.
The moment he set foot on the Floating Island, he knew that there were intruders on it. The island all but screamed it at him. He dropped to one knee as the energies of the Master Emerald poured into him, making him dizzy.
"Okay, okay!" he said aloud. "I get it! Let me get up, at least!"
Gradually the assault faded, and the red echidna was able to rise and shake his head. "Good grief," he muttered, walking up toward the house. "I'll check in after I see how Zephyer ..." He trailed off. The house was dark, the front door half open.
He bounded up the porch steps and yanked the door open. Three days spent fighting aliens had him ready to see his entire family murdered, and perhaps Black Arms lounging in the living room. But the house was empty. He dashed from room to room. People had been here lately ... the living room was piled with blankets and sleeping bags. The kitchen table was strewn with dirty dishes and crumbs. Talon's room was a disaster, as well as the closet that the chao used as a room. Where was everyone? Had the aliens come and taken them?
No, that was impossible. Zephyer never would have let it happen.
The only way to find everyone was to use the Master Emerald. It could show him the location of anyone on the island, including intruders.
He hurried back outside and down to the teleporter plate. He stepped on it and waited. Nothing happened.
He smacked his forehead. How many times had he told Talon to go to Hidden Palace and shut off the teleporter network? Fortunately, being the Guardian,
he knew the override code. He crouched, fumbled for the dial on the side of the teleporter, and turned it left and right several times, as if opening a safe.
The lens lit under his feet. He stood up straight and beamed down to Hidden Palace. As the entry cave appeared around him, Knuckles took a step forward and froze. He was eye to tooth with Chimera, who was in dragon form and snarling.
"It's me, stupid!" he yelled.
Chimera tilted his head and looked at Knuckles with one eye, still snarling.
Then he backed away and sheathed his fangs. "Oh, Knuckles! Sorry. I was supposed to watch in case an alien came down."
Knuckles put his hands on his hips. "You're a dragon."
"Yeah, isn't it great?" said Chimera, arching his neck and stretching his tail and wings. "I'm not full-size, but ..."
"You're a DRAGON," said Knuckles, tapping one foot.
Chimera pointed at the emerald chamber with one claw. "Talon let me. Deal with him."
"I will," said Knuckles, stalking toward the emerald chamber. "Keep guarding the teleporter. I had to turn the network back on."
Knuckles stepped into the emerald chamber, intending to berate Talon, but the words died on his lips. Zinc had transformed into a giant silver robot, and was draped across the Master Emerald, almost hiding it from view. His silver armor was scorched and missing in some places, revealing the sinew beneath.
There was no blood, but Knuckles knew that if Zinc returned to chao form with wounds like that, he would bleed to death in seconds.
Talon dashed into view. "Put your arm down on this side," he said. Zinc lowered one arm and touched the Master Emerald. Talon touched his arm and laid one hand on the Master Emerald. Knuckles knew what he was trying to do.
Talon's unique Chaos ability was one of healing, but Talon had to have a Chaos Emerald to use it. The Master Emerald's power worked for no one but a Guardian.
Talon tried anyway. He shut his eyes and tried to draw on the power, so near and yet so inaccessible. Knuckles watched, interested. He had never seen anyone else ever try to actually use the Master Emerald--even Sonic had never tried it. Zephyer, naturally, didn't count.
After a while Talon opened his eyes. "Did you feel anything?"
"No," grunted Zinc. "It all still hurts."
Talon sank to the floor and rested his head on his knees. "I can't do it," he whispered. "I need Knuckles."
Knuckles walked up and knelt in front of him. "Hey," he said.
Talon looked up. Then his face lit up and threw himself on Knuckles in a hug.
"Oh sir, you're home! It's been so terrible!"
Knuckles hugged Talon, wincing as the anteater's grip chafed fresh bruises.
"Yep, I'm back, and just in time, it looks like. What's been happening?
Where's Zephyer?"
Talon let go and stood up. "Zephyer went into labor right after you left.
She's in Knothole. She said she laid the egg all right, and they're waiting for it to hatch before she comes home."
Knuckles nodded, suddenly torn between the desire to dash off and see his wife, and the need to deal with the situation on the Floating Island.
Talon launched into a description of the UFO and the aliens, and of how he had given the chao the Super Emeralds, and how Silver had fought the aliens with his telekinesis. Knuckles listened, looking up at the injured Zinc and slowly becoming more and more impressed. The kids had handled things well.
Talon's story wound down. "And they were hurt, so we came back here to try to heal them. Chimera's not hurt too bad, just burned the inside of his mouth, so I was trying to fix Zinc first. But I can't use the Master Emerald at all.
And the green Super Emerald is gone."
Knuckles stepped up to the Master Emerald and laid a hand on it, just under Zinc's arm. He held out his other hand to Talon. "Here, let me help this time."
Talon laid one hand in Knuckles's, and touched Zinc.
Knuckles was amazed at the amount of power Talon drew through him. It actually made the Master Emerald flicker. Talon poured all of it into Zinc,
concentrating fiercely, as if fueling the healing with his own frustration at not being able to touch the power before now. Zinc sighed. "Oh, that feels good. I don't think I'll die now."
In less than a minute Zinc's wounds had sealed over with silver metal,
although his plate armor did not return. Talon let go of Zinc and Knuckles at the same time. To Knuckles's surprise, the power kept flowing into him,
healing the bruises and cuts he had received from fighting aliens and robots.
He stood a moment and let the healing complete its work. Why had he never tried this before? Of course the Master Emerald would heal its Guardian. Duh!
Zinc shrank back into a small silver chao, and looked comically tiny sitting high atop the Master Emerald. He carefully climbed down, and called, "Hey Chimera! Your turn!"
"Am I in trouble?" asked Chimera, peering through the doorway.
"No, not now," said Knuckles. The healing had filled him with a calm, peaceful feeling. He didn't feel remotely angry at Chimera anymore. "Come on, it won't take long."
Chimera slithered through the doorway on his belly and lowered his head so Talon could touch his nose. Talon again linked hands with Knuckles, and gave Chimera a strong dose of power. Chimera opened and closed his mouth a few times. "Much better. It all felt kind of numb before. The aliens are made of lava!"
"Something close to it, anyway," said Knuckles, as Talon broke the link and stood rubbing his hands, as if they tingled.
Zinc looked around. "Where's Silver?"
"Standing guard," said Talon. "Silver took ... I think ten machine guns and some grenades up to the palace entrance."
"Why there?" asked Knuckles.
Talon looked at the floor. "Because we think the aliens got into Lava Reef.
The ones we didn't kill."
The gates of Hidden Palace were at the end of a long stone corridor cut through black basalt. The gates themselves were twenty feet high, carved from blue and green crystal and engraved with flowing Old Mobian script.
Silver sat on a lump of rock outside the gates, surrounded by a cloud of floating weapons. Each gun covered the tunnel from a different angle, and the grenades lay on the floor halfway down the tunnel, where Silver could pull their pins and use them as remote-detonated mines.
He was nervous and twitchy. He had been on guard for almost two hours, and being alone up here with nothing but his weapons for company was lonesome and frightening. And the tunnel had an annoying habit of creaking now and then, as if the island were having small earthquakes. Silver knew about earthquakes. He also knew that being underground during an earthquake was a very bad idea. But this was a Floating Island! How could it have earthquakes? Maybe he was hearing digging aliens. So he stuck to his post, nervousness rising.
At last he heard footsteps on the marble floor inside the palace. Thank goodness, Talon was back. Silver let all the guns gently down on the ground as Talon poked his head around the edge of the gate. "Hello Silver. Knuckles is back!"
Talon stepped out, and Knuckles followed him. Silver had never been so glad to see the red echidna. He jumped up and shook Knuckles's hand. "I'm so glad you're here! Does the island have earthquakes? I keep hearing weird sounds."
"They're not really earthquakes," said Knuckles, looking at the guns lying on the floor, then out at the tunnel. "The island's heart is molten lava because of the concentrated amounts of chaos energy in Hidden Palace. The lava also keeps the island from cracking apart. Kind of like renewable glue. But the heat causes a lot of shifting in the rock, and that's probably what you're hearing."
"Why doesn't the island just melt?" asked Silver.
Knuckles walked away down the passage. "All other questions must be submitted in writing," he called back. "Nice of you to leave my grenades on the floor like this. They were expensive, you know."
"I was going to use them as landmines," said Silver, as he and Talon hurried after Knuckles.
"Good idea," said Knuckles. "Make sure you bring the guns."
Silver motioned at the weapons, and they whisked into the air and followed them in a cloud, clanging as they bumped each other.
"I checked the Master Emerald," Knuckles told Talon and Silver as they fell into step beside him. "There's eleven aliens in Lava Reef. They've holed up in one of the crystal mines, and they seemed to be feeding on the lava there.
It'll be a fight to dig them out."
"Why not just collapse the mine, sir?" asked Talon.
"Too valuable," said Knuckles. "All of the mines are."
Silver looked at Knuckles's gleaming shovelclaws. If Knuckles had dug an entire mine himself, then it was no wonder that he didn't want to destroy it.
They reached the end of the tunnel, which was a dead end. Or at least, it looked like one. Knuckles moved up to the wall and stepped sideways, out of sight. Talon and Silver walked up and saw a narrow crack in the rock that wound sideways and upward. Knuckles inched through the crack and said over his shoulder, "It's a squeeze, but you can make it. Silver, be careful with the guns."
Talon and Silver were smaller and thinner than Knuckles, and they passed through the crack without getting stuck at all. The crack was twenty feet long, and in places the rock was jagged and broken where Knuckles had had to dig it open. But at last they emerged in the bottom of a black ravine in the floor of a huge cavern. Knuckles led them along the ravine several hundred feet to a deep crack in the wall with a sloping floor. They climbed out of the ravine there, and finally reached the cavern floor. Silver looked around in amazement, and almost dropped the weapons. The cavern was at least a mile across, supported by rock pillars like enormous trees. It was lit with a red magma glow from the other end of the cavern, and the ceiling shone with glowing blue crystals. It made the cavern a dim purple place that was quite hot.
Knuckles walked to the cloud of guns, inspected them, and took a rifle. Silver let go of it and watched as Knuckles pulled out the clip and inspected it.
"Still loaded, good," said Knuckles. "The mines aren't far, and I want you two to stay behind me. Silver, can you move the guns so they're ahead of me? I don't want to get shot in the back."
"Okay," said Silver, waving a hand. The guns zipped over to float in front of Knuckles. Knuckles nodded and smiled. "Good. C'mon."
He led them into a passage in the cavern wall. This passage was lit by glowing green crystals, and it twisted this way and that until Silver and Talon lost all sense of direction. Now and then they passed a vent that blew fresh air into the passage.
After a while the tunnel widened out into a long, low-ceilinged room. Knuckles pressed himself against the tunnel wall, motioned for them to stay back, and carefully peered into the room. After a moment he backed away from the entrance and whispered, "The big one is standing guard. Stay back down the tunnel."
Silver and Talon retreated to a bend fifty feet back down the tunnel, and watched anxiously as Knuckles raised the rifle and took aim. They covered their ears and waited.
Gunshots in a stone passage are even louder than outdoors. Covering their ears did nothing to block the sound. What was worse, all they seemed to do was make the alien on guard angry. They heard it bellow, and then the tunnel shook with crashes and thuds. Knuckles charged out of the tunnel into the room.
"Do we go help?" Silver whispered.
"He said stay here," said Talon.
They listened to the sounds of battle as Knuckles and the alien fought.
Finally they couldn't stand it anymore, and crept forward just enough to see into the cave.
The alien was the remaining Black Oak, and it was bleeding burning yellow lava from wounds in its head. This only seemed to have maddened it, for it was swinging at Knuckles with a broken stalactite and trying to trample him with its wide feet. Knuckles ducked and dodged, and once in a while darted in and dealt a bone-cracking blow to its knees.
"Silver, there's lots of loose rock," Talon whispered.
Silver nodded and studied the rocks. Most were small, and from the way they looked, probably not heavy. But that stalactite in the alien's hands ... that looked heavy.
Silver waited until the alien drew back its club for an extra-hard swing at Knuckles, then Silver grabbed the club with his mind and yanked. The alien held on. Silver yanked harder, lifting the alien off its feet. It roared and hung on.
"I have an idea," said Silver, staring at the alien without blinking.
"Knuckles, come back!" Talon yelled.
Knuckles stared up at the hovering alien, then ran back to the tunnel.
"Silver, what are you doing?" he panted.
Silver didn't answer. He held out one hand and slapped it sideways. The alien careened into the wall. Then Silver slammed it into the opposite wall. The alien reeled. Silver ripped the club out of its hands and broke it over the alien's head, and the Black Oak finally collapsed.
Knuckles and Talon watched the motionless alien for a moment. "Nice work"
said Knuckles.
Silver was shaking. He leaned against the wall and hugged himself. "I've never done that before," he murmured. "I don't like grabbing people and hurting them. It makes my power feel evil. I could do that to anybody. I could kill both of you, even." He shuddered.
"You don't have to fight any more, Silver," said Knuckles laying a hand on Silver's shoulder. "You've done more than enough. You and Talon can wait here while I deal with the others."
"No!" Talon and Silver exclaimed at once. "We fought them together once already," said Talon. "Right?"
"Right," said Silver, standing up and clenching his fists to steady his shaking hands. "We're going to help you, Knuckles."
"All right," said Knuckles, gazing at Silver a moment. "But no more telekinesis while we're down here. You could collapse the whole place."
"Yes, I could," said Silver, and left it at that.
They crossed the low room and entered the tunnel on the far side. The walls grew increasingly rougher, and side passages branched off the main one. Most were dark, but a few were lit with yellow or blue light. The main passage was lit with green crystals all the way down.
Knuckles stopped and held up a hand. Talon and Silver stopped, too. Somewhere nearby was the sound of tapping or hammering, and the grumbling, guttural sounds that the Black Arms made to communicate. Silver looked at his floating cloud of guns, selected a grenade, and floated it into Knuckles's hand.
Knuckles nodded and tiptoed down a side passage, toward the sound.
The passage made a sharp bend, and ended at a rough hollow where ore and crystal had once been mined. Packed into this hollow were all ten aliens. They were all hard at work clawing and beating at the rock, and to Knuckles's surprise, they were boring into the stone as quickly as if they had tools. He watched in bewilderment as from time to time they opened mouths that he had not known they had, and took bites of the stone. No, not the stone .
crystal. Any crystal they unearthed, they devoured.
As he watched, they ate away four feet of rock, then stopped, removed the supports on the far wall, and began eating the rock in that direction. They were hollowing out a new cavern as quickly as he could, and stripping the rock of anything valuable. They were also weakening the tunnel the more space they opened up without supports.
Knuckles retreated to Silver and Talon and explained what the aliens were doing. He handed the grenade back to Silver. "No explosions," he told him.
"They've taken down the structural supports, and an explosion would bring it all down on us."
Talon stared at Knuckles, wide-eyed. Talon had been to the mines with Knuckles, and he knew how paranoid Knuckles was about cave-ins. Knuckles used three times as many supports as was necessary, and some of the mines had collapsed anyway, usually when the island was in motion.
"Silver, hand me one of the automatics," said Knuckles.
Silver looked at his cloud of weapons a moment, then offered them all to Knuckles. Knuckles grabbed one and said, "I see we'll have to give you some weapon training, Silv."
Talon took one of the pistols and looked at it. "Sir, the rifle didn't hurt the big one much."
"No," said Knuckles. "Their brains don't seem to be in their heads. If they even have brains. They have more of a hive mind, we think. But there's ten of them in there, and I'm not going in without a little extra punch." He crept down the tunnel and around the bend.
Talon and Silver covered their ears as Knuckles emptied his entire clip into the group of aliens. As they had feared, this only made them angry. The gunshots stopped and the tunnel echoed with grunts, growls, blows and the crash of flesh on stone.
An alien flew out of the tunnel, crashed into the wall opposite Talon and Silver, slumped to the floor and lay still. They stared at it, waiting for it to twitch, and Silver trained all his weapons on it. But the alien didn't move, and its glowing blood slowly darkened to black.
Knuckles bounded back into the tunnel and whirled to face the aliens, fists up, breathing heavily. He was spattered with their burning blood, and it had burned holes in his fur. Talon winced.
Silver stared at the ceiling, not noticing. Slowly he let all the weapons down to rest on the floor.
Knuckles lunged forward and punched an alien in the eyes. It fell back with a hiss, and two more charged forward. Talon watched, wishing that he could fight. But he had never been good at fighting ... had never been good at anything, really, except healing.
Silver slowly lifted one hand toward the ceiling, still staring. Talon followed his gaze and saw cracks snaking across the ceiling. The cracks lit with blue light, and the dust that was trickling from them stopped in midair.
"Sir!" Talon yelled. "The cave is breaking up!" He pointed at the ceiling.
Knuckles had an alien by both arms and was struggling with it. He stopped, the alien at arm's length, and gazed upward. Then he flung the alien away and bolted toward them, yelling, "Run! Run!"
Talon started to run, only to feel a strange floating sensation. He lifted up off the floor and flew forward, down the tunnel to the main passage. There he landed on his feet and turned. Silver had just moved him! He had moved Knuckles, too, because Knuckles was right behind him.
The aliens had noticed the cracks, too, because they were swarming toward Silver. Silver released the roof and flew toward them, the aliens at his heels. But the cracking roof outpaced him, cracks opening all along the passage and snaking into the roof and walls of the main passage.
Knuckles cursed in Old Mobian. The ceiling began to fall in at the back of the mine shaft, right behind the aliens. Dust billowed toward them. Knuckles pushed Talon up the tunnel, and Talon ran, looking back. Knuckles grabbed Silver, who had stopped and was trying to hold the passage up with his telekinesis. Knuckles dragged him along, and Silver kept one hand up, holding up the roof just above them. Rocks were falling all around now, and the roar of falling stone was deafening. The glowing crystals fell and were buried, and the tunnel plunged into deep twilight.
The tunnel shook and Talon sprinted into the small cave where the Black Oak still lay. The dust was so thick that he couldn't see the far tunnel, and he had to stop and feel along the wall. He felt Knuckles's hand on his shoulder,
and it steered him sideways, into the tunnel. The crash of falling rock was all around, echoing. Talon couldn't tell if it was all caving in or not. He kept running, with Knuckles's hand still on his shoulder.
Knuckles stopped and Talon stopped, too. Silver had stumbled and fallen.
Knuckles dragged him to his feet, and saw to his horror that Silver was unconscious. Hit by a rock? Knuckles slung him over his shoulder, grabbed Talon's arm, and kept running.
They burst out into the big cavern in a puff of dust, and stood in the open,
panting and watching the rest of the mine tunnel collapse in on itself.
"That was close," said Talon.
"No aliens made it out," panted Knuckles. "Good." He crouched and slid Silver off his shoulder, stretching him out on the rock. He ran a hand over Silver's head, searching for a wound. But there was nothing. Silver was breathing, but unconscious, eyes rolled back in his head.
Knuckles stood up and looked down at him, then at the tunnel. "You know what"
he said, "I think he busted his brain trying to keep the roof up."
"Will--will he be all right, sir?" asked Talon.
"Once we get him healed, sure," said Knuckles, picking up Silver with a grunt.
"Come on, let's get back to Hidden Palace."
Silver had pushed the ceiling back into place as they ran, but the Floating Island was so big and his power was so small. It sucked his power away from him, even as he poured it into the rock. Knuckles dragged him along and he barely noticed. The cracks were keeping pace with them, outstripping them-
they were all going to die! Silver pressed the roof back together with all his might, willing none of those rocks to fall.
Then heat washed through his head, from his forehead to his spine. He tripped,
fell--
And stood before Iblis once more, a purple cat by his side. "I'm all fire inside anyway," she was saying. "Let me!" She took the chaos emeralds from Silver's hands and turned to face the monster.
"Blaze, no!" he cried, but it was too late. Iblis was melting into Blaze,
pouring into her in a red stream of fire. Blaze shut her eyes and bared her teeth, gripping the chaos emeralds with all her might.
Then Iblis was gone. Blaze stood on the brink of the precipice, glowing red and slightly transparent. She dropped the chaos emeralds at Silver's feet and said, "The only way to make sure he'll never come back is to seal myself away." She stepped off the cliff and floated in midair.
"Blaze, no," Silver cried, his tears making her into a bright blur.
Blaze smiled, which was a rare sight. "Oh Silver," she sighed, "you're so naive. You'll be just fine." The air rippled and she passed through it, out of sight, as if sinking into water.
Then she was gone, and the world changed. Silver saw Soleanna completely repaired, and his world no longer burned, and Sonic lying dead. He saw a small flame go out.
He opened his eyes to see Knuckles and Talon bending over him with anxious expressions. "Blaze," he told them. "I'm looking for Blaze. But she's lost."
"Silver, it's us," said Talon. "Are you okay?"
Silver sat up and flinched. He was lying on the pedestal beside the Master Emerald, and its power scorched him like fire. "Ow. I will be in a minute." He scrambled to his feet and hurried across the cave, away from the Master Emerald. He stepped into the outer cave and stood rubbing his head. He had a vague headache, but it was fading. Talon and Knuckles had followed him,
Knuckles looking bemused and Talon concerned.
"How did we get out of the mine?" asked Silver. "I think I pulled a brain-
muscle or something."
"We think you had an aneurysm," said Knuckles. "You broke something in your head, anyway. You were out of it until Talon healed you just now."
Silver shivered. "Thanks, Talon."
Talon smiled shyly. "You're welcome."
Knuckles looked around. "There you two are."
Zinc and Chimera were waiting by the teleporter plate with angelic expressions. "We didn't go near the weapon room," said Chimera.
"Nope," said Zinc.
Knuckles scowled at them. "Get to the surface, you brats."
They obediently jumped on the teleporter and beamed out.
Knuckles strode after them. "C'mon, guys. I've got to go see Zephyer, and you can clean house while I'm gone."
Talon and Silver groaned.