A/N: I know what you're thinking…your thinking, "FINALLY!" OK…so maybe that's not what you're thinking, but that's certainly what I'm thinking. But enough with all of my thoughts about thinking and on to things that matter more, like this chapter, for example. Here's chapter 4 of my (not-wildly-popular-but-gaining-in-popularity) Sonic the Hedgehog fanfic. I hope you like it, and don't forget to review! Reviewing helps me to get the next chapter out quicker!
Review Thanks: (As always, if I forget someone please shoot me a message and I'll reply to you personally)
"Chintara": Thanks for your review. I try to make my chapters as flawless as possible, but I, like everyone else in the world, am not perfect, so I'm not saying that every chapter won't be without its errors. But if you find any errors please don't hesitate to report them to me in a review. As far as including Knuckles and Rouge's first level, you'll have to read on to see whether I've done that or not.
"OvErLoRd Darkspine": I'm glad you like long chapters…not that each chapter I write will be long, but I'll try to make them a considerable length. As far as including Tails' first stage, you'll have to read on to see whether I've done that or not.
"Warak": Thanks for your review. Not much to say about this one, except that you're absolutely right – it's hard to find the time to write fanfiction. That's why it's taken me so long to come out with this chapter – cause I just haven't found the time to write it (until now, that is).
By the way, I should probably mention this again: I do not own nor am I affiliated with Sonic the Hedgehog, Sega Corporation, the Sonic the Hedgehog logo, or any of the Sonic characters. All information related to Sonic, his friends, and Sonic Adventure 2 are copyrighted by Sega of America, Sonic Team, Sega Technical Institute, Sega Europe and Sega of Japan. All other information is copyrighted by me, neosonic2.
And now, on to chapter 4. Enjoy!
Sonic Adventure 2: A Promise Gone Awry
A Sonic the Hedgehog fanfic written by neosonic2
Chapter 4: Excursions
While Sonic was busy evading G.U.N.'s military attack force, Knuckles the Echidna was busy hunting down the Master Emerald shards. After he had shattered the Master Emerald a couple of hours ago while trying to free it from Dr. Eggman's grasp, the pieces had scattered to various locations around the world, and Knuckles was determined to find all of them and restore the Master Emerald before Rouge got her hands on them. After all, Knuckles was the one who had the power to restore the shattered Master Emerald, so even if Rouge did manage to collect all of the shards before he did they would be of no use to her.
Knuckles was located in an ancient, steep canyon not far from where he had fought with Rouge over possession of the Master Emerald. Because it was early afternoon and because the canyon was in the desert, it was extremely hot, a fact which Knuckles did not take kindly to. He had spent the last half hour looking for three of the Master Emerald shards that his radar had reported were located somewhere in this canyon, known to the ancients as Wild Canyon. The canyon consisted of two levels, a lower level that formed the front of a cave and an upper level that was only reachable by a giant wind fan located in the center of the lower level. Knuckles had already found one of the Master Emerald shards in the lower level of the canyon, and was now riding the wind fan up to the top level to continue his search.
"Man, it's hot out here!" said Knuckles to himself as he wiped sweat off of his face. He exited the wind fan and began to glide to his right, where he saw an area protruding out of the canyon wall that held several buildings that looked to be made out of wood. "Perhaps those are shacks," Knuckles thought to himself as he landed on the sandy ground a few feet in front of the first shack, which was positioned close to the canyon wall. "But who would build a shack way out here in the middle of the desert? Wait…it's probably those archeologists. Maybe they found one of the Master Emerald shards…that'd be great if they did because I'm really getting tired of this."
When Knuckles had first come to Wild Canyon he had been met by some archeologists that were digging there to see if they could unearth some ancient ruins. Knuckles noticed and was surprised to find that these archeologists looked almost exactly the same as the ones who had been exploring the Mystic Ruins a few months earlier. Knuckles had seen these archeologists a lot at the Mystic Ruins because apparently they had lost their way when the Angel Island, Knuckles' home, crashed into the ocean, forming an extension to the Ruins that created a sort of jungle area. At first Knuckles didn't think to ask the archeologists at Wild Canyon if they had unearthed a Master Emerald shard, but now he was finding that the idea was worth a shot.
He walked briskly up to the first shack and peered inside. To his dismay, there weren't any archeologists inside, but there was something there that Knuckles didn't immediately recognize. Walking closer to the object, he noticed that it was a transparent capsule. "I wonder what this is." Knuckles said aloud to no one in particular. "My inner radar isn't detecting this as a piece of the Master Emerald, and it doesn't look like a Chaos Emerald…but then why does it have a picture of my face the size of a card in it?"
"It's an Item Capsule," said a voice. Knuckles whirled around, fists clenched, and saw a tall figure standing in the doorway of the wooden shack. He saw, to his relief, that it was only one of the archeologists. "What's an Item Capsule?" asked Knuckles. "It allows you to procure certain items from it, of course," replied the archeologist, a little annoyed. "Items include power rings, a regular electronic shield, a magnetic shield that attracts power ring capsules, and an energy restoration item. The Item Capsules are powered by Chaos Energy, or energy from the Chaos Emeralds, so you have to be able to handle the Chaos Emeralds to use them."
"I can do that," said Knuckles, walking back over to the Item Capsule. "So I take it that this capsule that has a picture of my face in it is the energy restoration item?" "Correct," answered the archeologist. Knuckles then touched the transparent capsule to see what would happen next. With a loud pop, the capsule expanded then disappeared, taking the card along with it. Knuckles, frightened by the explosion of the capsule, jumped backwards in shock. He felt a sensation of warmth envelop his entire body, and then suddenly he felt 100 percent restored. His spirits were higher, the sweat was gone from his face, and he felt altogether ready to find the rest of the Master Emerald shards.
"Hey thanks for the info about the Item Capsules," Knuckles said to the archeologist." That's so cool. But did you by chance find a piece of an emerald while you were looking for the ancient ruins or whatever it was you guys are trying to find?" "Yes, actually, we did. Two pieces, in fact. Follow me and I'll show you where we dug them up." Knuckles gratefully followed the archeologist out of the shack and turned right with him to continue down the little shelf in the canyon wall. They passed a few other shacks and came to a portion of the canyon wall that looked different than the others. It was also where a few of the archeologist's team members were gathered, feverishly digging. The archeologist who had originally addressed Knuckles pulled from his pocket a small, shiny green shard. "The Master Emerald shard!" exclaimed Knuckles, taking the shard from the archeologist's hand. "We found it on the ground underneath that odd-looking patch of wall," the archeologist explained, pointing to the brightly-colored portion of canyon wall directly in front of them. "We found an ancient scroll that says that there are hidden treasures and stuff on the other side of those colored walls," another archeologist called out from where he was working. "The scroll said that in order to get beyond the walls you have to dig with a special tool, but we don't seem to have that tool so we haven't gotten through them yet." "I bet more of the Master Emerald pieces are behind that wall," commented Knuckles dryly. "But I don't have any special tools to dig with either so I guess I'm stuck until I can find something."
Suddenly Knuckle's inner radar went off, urging him to head west to a mountainous region not far from Wild Canyon. For as long as Knuckles could remember, he had possessed this "inner radar" to help him track the Master Emerald pieces if they ever got stolen. It was sort of like a "sixth sense" or an instinct, and right now the instinct was pretty strong. So Knuckles thanked the archeologists, stored his three newly-acquired Master Emerald shards in his pocket for safe keeping, and headed out of Wild Canyon toward the mountainous region in the west, excited about the prospect of finding more of the Master Emerald shards.
***
Meanwhile, a few hundred miles away, Rouge the Bat was frantically searching through an oasis, trying to find several pieces of the Master Emerald shards before Knuckles did. While the oasis Rouge was searching through was cooler than Wild Canyon, it was a lot larger, which made Rouge's job much more difficult than Knuckles'. Plus there weren't any archeologists around to help her find the shards. But Rouge was an expert hunter, able to find anything. Jewels, especially Chaos Emeralds, were her pride and joy. She loved collecting them, not only because she found them quite fascinating but also because she was working with a secret government organization and got paid large sums of money or jewelry to find the Emeralds.
Rouge was an expert treasure hunter, like Knuckles, so finding the Master Emerald shards in the oasis wasn't too difficult for her. She didn't run into any problems either, except that she did notice a giant turtle being harassed by two G.U.N. robots. She walked over to the turtle and destroyed the G.U.N. robots with one of her kicks, and then watched as the grateful turtle jumped into the oasis. Seeing that this turtle was unlike any she had ever seen before, Rouge peered more closely at the turtle. As she did so, something bumped into her from behind, knocking onto the turtle's shell. Before she had time to react, the turtle sank underwater and swam rapidly to another, smaller oasis. In the few minutes it took Rouge to find the Master Emerald shards she realized that she could use the turtle to transport from one oasis to another, something she needed to do in order to find all three shards.
But eventually she found them and was about to head out of the oasis when the communicator on her writs beeped to life, alerting her that she had an incoming message. She flicked it on, noting that the message was from her private contact. The message stated that Dr. Eggman was up to no good again, something that Rouge had already surmised by the fact that the message was sent with high priority. What she didn't know or expect, however, was that the message said that Eggman was hunting down the Chaos Emeralds as well and therefore needed to be stopped at all costs. Rouge was delighted at this, because stealing jewels from others was her treasure hunting specialty. "This mission should be easy," thought Rouge to herself as she headed out of the canyon towards Eggman's secret pyramid base.
A/N: I know, I know, I know…this chapter is crappy, isn't it? Go ahead; you can say it outright in your review. The thing is, I'm not that great AT ALL with writing Knuckle's or Rouge's stages, because you don't really do anything except hunt for Master Emerald shards. And because I'm visually impaired I can't describe the landscapes real well either. But if this chapter wasn't exciting, the next one will be because (SPOILER ALERT) it entails Tail's battle with Eggman as well as his first stage and Amy Rose's rescue of her darling Sonic. That should be fun……..
Hope you enjoyed this chapter. Don't forget to review! And don't even tell yourself that you don't know what a review is…because you do! Ha ha, anyway until next chapter!