Chapter Four – Amy the Angel

The Master Emerald's striking green appearance was beginning to fade. Its energy was being drained and transferred to the mysterious creatures via the red spheres. Knuckles looked on in horror the creatures were charging up like live batteries. No longer in stealth mode but lit up in multi coloured tones. Purples, reds, oranges, blues, greens and pinks ebbed and flowed through their bodies. They had no shape only parts that stuck out where perhaps limbs should be. No faces or distinctive features - he had never come across such things before and he didn't like the look of them one bit.

Knuckles charged downwards the red spheres punching one hard but he never reached his target. One of the creatures had grown an arm at least five metres long! It was standing on the other side of the Master Emerald moving its new arm with lightning speed preventing the echidna from breaking through. It was a flimsy, weak bare thread of an arm how could it move so fast and be so strong? It was incomprehensible. The guardian continued to struggle against the cascade of colour in front of him. Jumping away the arm spilt into four parts and surrounded the echidna creating a square on the floor. In turn from each side of the square a transparent barrier was set up. When Knuckles tried to walk out of the square he was met by a solid wall. He pressed his palms against one of the cube's newly formed walls and pushed, it was solid. He tried to punch it and was rewarded with an electric shock. The transparent walls were now alive with blue buzzing energy it had become an electrified prison!

Tails immediately began punching buttons on his scanning mobile device. The readings were going off the chart the amount of differing energy being detected was beyond the scales. All he could tell was that the barrier sealing Knuckles inside was adapting to his behaviour patterns. Whatever method he used to escape the prison used the information and turned it against him. He was immediately reminded of Emerl a robot that copied the fighting techniques of anyone it fought. He had been powered by the Chaos Emeralds perhaps there was a link? One thing was for sure the red spheres would need to be dealt with before they even had a chance of tackling the colourful creatures.

Sonic stood up. Having watched carefully what had happened to his hot headed friend he veered on the side of caution.

"Who are you?" He demanded but there was no reply.

He dashed to his left narrowly escaping the square trap that had appeared under his feet. Another of the gaudy mob had turned its attention to the speedy blue hedgehog. It had no eyes but Sonic could tell it was watching his every move, waiting for a gap or a weakness to exploit. It sent several globs of colour into the air these globs morphed into spikes and began raining down on Sonic. Shuffling from side to side the cocky hero came back on himself and ran past the enemy. The spikes smashed through the alien's body separating it into a dozen pieces. It lay still on the ground and Sonic grinned.

"You remind me an awful lot of Chaos you know that? Just as easy to defeat too…"

The pieces of the creature's body were splattered all over the floor like paint splodges. The drops of colour began to quiver and shake. They slid over the craggy rocks searching for one another. Like mercury they rejoined gradually increasing in size, until the reformed being was back to how it had always been. Sonic's eyes widened this wasn't going to be as easy as he thought.

Amy hugged the rock she was hiding behind in a panic. What the hell were those things? One had sprouted wings and taken to the air and scoured the area to get a better look. It spotted the pink hedgehog and dived towards her. From its wings a string of fine coloured goo erupted which bounced on the ground forming huge arches that repeated over and over. The arches were rushing headlong at the perceived foe, Amy could only turn and run.

She ran down the steps back the way she had come. Five creatures had joined the chase now each shooting their own strand of goo. Some had morphed into projectiles others were four legged beasts accelerating to catch their prey. The beasts ran ahead cutting off the escape route and Amy was forced to turn another direction.

"SONIC!"

The blue hedgehog rolled his eyes at the sight before him. The beasts had transformed their arms into sharp blades and were now trying to chop his friend into Amy snack bites. Knuckles was trapped in the electric prison and now even Tails was struggling. His little brother was diving to the floor trying to avoid one of the creatures who had decided to morph into the Tornado! The pulsing vivid plane was circling the fox and firing bullets of blue and green towards its target. Some bullets splattered onto the ground and began to spread over the stone floor, others made deeper impacts and carved holes as large as craters.

"This is intense!" Tails wheezed as he tried desperately to keep from getting hit. It was too late he slipped on the blue ooze that had caked the floor and rolled over. He tried to get up immediately but was stuck in place - he couldn't move!

It began to dawn on the techno whiz kid that he was succumbing to the effects of unusual gravity. He was sinking into the goo half his body had already disappeared, even though he knew it was impossible. Tails breathed deeply and tried to remain calm and still. He believed the effect to be the same as quick sand. The ooze, however had other ideas and was working increasingly hard to drag him under! Hundreds of tiny hands were pinching and tugging on Tails' fur dragging him towards hell. The fox fought back the urge to struggle and ignored the overwhelming desire to scream.

Amy found herself well and truly caught within the grasp of two large hands. She took her Piko Piko hammer and began to smack the beast determined to make an impression, the 'Coloureds' as she now called them snarled and hissed at the unwelcome mallet attacks. The Coloured who had seized her moments before threw Amy away straight back towards the Master Emerald, she smashed into the jewel sending it rolling away from its stone base.

"Oh God!" She forced her battered body to get up and run after the emerald, but it didn't get far. The red orbs circuit that had been draining the Master Emerald had finally been broken and the Coloureds power supply had been disconnected. Amy couldn't believe she hadn't broken anything a leg, an arm or even teeth she was still one piece.

Sonic saw the opportunity and made a break for it, he placed his hands carefully on top of the Master Emerald and felt his body energise with incredible power. His blue quills stood to attention and then spiked out jagged and sharp. His shining green eyes began to change into a deep crimson red he was surrounded by an intense yellow light that completely enveloped his body.

Super Sonic was out for revenge he ploughed into the red orbs swinging them together and cracking them open like eggs. The Coloureds turned aware that a new threat had arrived, their colourful bodies without the power supply had transformed to a dull shade of grey. They paced towards the bright yellow hedgehog morphing together to create a large warp hole that began to suck the in air like a vacuum cleaner.

Super Sonic was steadily being pulled into the hole he could see stars, moons and comets that he didn't recognise. He knew that being sucked into space in a galaxy far away from an inhabitable planet was not recommended. When the chaos energy ran its course he would be the ordinary Sonic the Hedgehog again. Ordinary Sonic the Hedgehog could not breathe in space and ordinary Sonic the Hedgehog would be a dead hedgehog.

He concentrated on a great ball of fizzing yellow chaos energy and hauled towards the enemy. It stunned the Coloureds for a brief moment but they recovered quickly and advanced once more towards their yellow demon. The warp hole's pull was extremely strong already columns of marble and even large boulders had been prised from their settings and were sucked in.

The aliens had decided to change tactics and now spilt into three, one to maintain the warp hole as a threat and other two to distract Super Sonic and keep him busy. Knuckles and Tails were still wrapped in their own problems and could only watch helplessly as Super Sonic battled alone. The yellow hedgehog was throwing everything he had at the antagonists but still they came hurling sticky ooze and morphing objects into projectiles. Every time Super Sonic was hit he could feel his energy being drained he couldn't keep this up for long.

Even with super speed and chaos energy he couldn't get close enough to pummel into the horde. The warp hole was a constant irritation once or twice he truly believed that he may be sucked inside and darted out of harm's way at the crucial second. Smaller holes appeared revealing more red orbs that fired wires into Super Sonic's skin they began to extract the chaos energy from the new source. Super Sonic roared with rage.

Amy shook her head and clenched her fists, Super Sonic was in trouble and there was nothing she could do! She watched as the red orbs fired more wires into the flesh of Super Sonic, although he fought valiantly and smashed several of the droids to pieces another set of warp holes appeared with yet more red orbs. The warp hole was closing in on him but he was entangled in the wires of the orbs.

"You can't gang up on him that's not fair!" She yelled at the Coloureds but they ignored her.

She glanced at Tails who was sticking his nose out of the blue ooze trying to breathe, if she didn't do something soon these aliens were going to win and take everything she held dear away.

Sonic was beginning to turn back to his normal royal blue he looked in great pain with blood spilling from where the wires had plunged into his limbs. They had extracted all the chaos energy from him and now wanted to take the rest. He struggled wildly against the wires but they held firm and kept him in place, he gave a distressed cry .

"NO!"

"Sonic, I'm coming!" Amy shouted to him, she looked at the Master Emerald about to thrust her hands into the chaos energy when Knuckles called out to her.

"Don't do it Amy, you have no idea what the chaos energy will do to you!"

"I can't just let him die!"

She was afraid just being near the Master Emerald filled her with unease and dread. It was so incredibly powerful if she did the unthinkable what would happen? Was she strong enough to resist the negative energy embedded within the stone? She had never turned super before or even so much as held a Chaos Emerald, what if the power was too much and ripped her apart? Sonic had grown used to the energy over time he knew how to control and use it properly. What if she was making a terrible mistake?

Knuckles could see the mind struggle going on and frantically screamed at Amy not to touch the Master Emerald. He knew that if Amy didn't control the power it would overtake her and turn her against her friends.

"DON'T DO IT!" Knuckles pleaded.

Amy covered her ears and focused on Sonic, he needed her help she didn't care what happened. If Sonic went into the warp hole it was over and nothing would bring him back.

"I'll take my chances!" She shouted back and clamped her fingers tips onto the emerald's surface.

At first nothing happened but then the emerald began to glow bright pink. Amy could feel jolts of chaos energy pouring into her body, she felt stronger more capable. She grasped the mallet and hurdled towards the nearest Coloured, the creature had not been expecting that! When the mallet connected the Coloured turned to stone and crumbled to the floor. Amy swung around pulled Tails from the blue ooze and settled him gently on firm ground.

"GO AMY!" He cheered back.

Next she smacked her hammer into the next target sending it careering towards its colleague holding the warp hole. When the warp hole fell from the Coloured it smashed to the floor just like a mirror. The suction ceased and Amy finally turned her attention back to Sonic.

Knuckles gasped at Amy in absolute amazement, she was magnificent! Her soft pink quills had become untangled from her red hair band and now jutted out to the sides. Her body was a golden yellow pulsing and glowing with power. Her piko piko hammer had turned completely silver and whenever it swung a barrage of silver and gold stars followed it. She flew at astounding speed and charged at the enemy relentlessly.

She attacked the smaller holes with her mallet and sent them crashing to the floor just as the larger warp hole had done. The droids began to fire their wires towards her but she twisted her mallet in circles so that the wires attached themselves to the handle instead. Then she jerked the droids and forced them to meet her where she promptly disposed of them with a ball of chaos flame.

Sonic weakly opened his eyes and thought he was dreaming was this Amy? He tried to speak but no words would come from his mouth he was blacking out. The droid's hold was slipping and he could feel his body falling towards the hard ground. He expected the landing to hurt and tried curled into a ball. Instead he was caught and a gentle hand was caressing his head. He looked up into crimson eyes that he didn't recognise. Oddly enough he wasn't afraid.

"Are you an angel?" He asked in confusion. She was warm and had a kind face, he felt completely at peace with her presence and yet there was something awfully familiar about the way she was looking at him.

The angel smiled but shook her head. They floated slowly back to the Master Emerald where Knuckles and Tails were waiting for them. Amy settled Sonic down gently and glanced around it seemed that the Coloureds had retreated – for now.