Goodbye Knuckles
Terra jumped back from Shadow and looked at him bewildered at his sudden change "You didn't tell me you were one of the damno exemplar." Now it was Shadow's turn to look at her weirdly. "I forfeit!" Terra shouted, swiftly making her way out of the ring. Shadow stood there so mystified that by the time he had come round to his senses Amy was pulling him off the ring and Terra had long disappeared. Amy pulled him all the way out the large door that she knew lead to the staircase to get back to ground level. They entered the room with the stairs to see blood stained walls and a few tramps. Amy continued to drag Shadow and started going up the stairs with him.
"Rose? Why are you dragging me?" The yellow Shadow asked. Amy continued to drag him up the stairs. "Can you give me my rings back? I'm starting to feel rather drained." Amy continued to drag Shadow until they got to the top of the stairs. She then turned round and handed him his rings. She waited for him to put them both on and his lemony yellow cream fur turned back to its usual black colour. Shadow leaned against the wall at the top of the stairs, panting slightly. "So why did you drag me all the way out here?" Shadow questioned once he had caught his full breath.
"I thought I best get you out of there before someone tried to do something stupid to you causing you to hurt them! You were standing there like an idiot while the crowd was getting enraged. I think they didn't like the way the battle just ended like that and blamed you." Amy explained. Voices could be heard getting louder from the bottom of the stairs, one of them was heard above the rest.
"I think they went this way!" A gruff voice of a man could be heard. Amy looked alarmed and pulled Shadow down the hallway at the top of the stairs that lead to the exit. Shadow gently pulled his arm out her reach and ran next to her.
They ran out the door, receiving funny looks from some passers by. Shadow quickly scooped Amy up in his arms and ran a few blocks down, swerving in and out of the pedestrians dangerously. He stopped outside a rather posh looking building which looked like it had a restaurant on the first two or three floors of it. Shadow quickly put Amy down and immediately looked back to see if they were being followed.
He could see the crowd moving out the way as people exited the doorway to the underground facility. "Hey Shadow, let's go in here. I can pay with my winnings." Amy said from behind Shadow. Shadow continued to stare at the crowd swarming out the door they had just came out of. He felt an arm link with his as Amy gently pulled him into the restaurant.
The gap in the doors revealed a bright light, one that hadn't been seen in that area for many years as it was covered in smog, the light of the real sun. Both Rage and Eric gasped in shock. The ground, though still just as ruined as always, was covered in a bright light. It gave a completely new look to the place.
They could see an extremely large crowd of soldiers not too far off in the distance, Rage pointed at it and Eric nodded. They both started walking towards it. Rage was suddenly blinded by the bright light as he made it out of the shadow of the wall. He swiftly looked up and could see the natural sun in all of its beauty. He smiled a soft and gentle smile as he continued walking towards the crowd.
As they approached the crowd they could hear a lot of cries of happiness, joy and praise. Rage couldn't place why they were all so happy about what had probably been an epic battle with casualties on both sides. By the time he got right close to the crowd however, he could hear mournful cries of regret. Sadness on an epic scale and curses of people telling themselves that they should have tried harder, should have done something different. Should have saved their fallen comrades.
Eric approached one of the people at the edge and tapped him on the shoulder. The Mobian continued to shout and cheer like he hadn't felt the tap. Eric shouted at him over the voices. "Hey! Could you listen to me!" The soldier turned round slowly, revealing a yellow ferret, looking at Eric he was slightly irritated because he was disturbed.
"What?" The soldier shouted back over the loud noises. Rage paid attention to the soldier as Eric asked the pressing question that was on both of their minds.
"What's happened, what's going on?" Eric asked the soldier, the soldier smirked slightly, seemingly pleased to be able to announce what had happened to someone who hadn't seen it. A quick glance at the soldiers uniform told him that he was a private as he had no insignia.
"Well the battle wasn't going too well, we were marginally outnumbered and they had been far improved compared to what we was up against last time. Commander Knuckles said it would be a tough battle, but... Well. We wasn't expecting this. Luckily a hedgehog, one that I can only guess came from the special division, came at a crucial moment and gave us a crucial advantage!" The private looked pleased. Eric and Rage looked at each other. They knew who it must be.
"What's this hedgehogs name. And where is he now?" Eric asked. The private smiled.
"It's a black hedgehog called Dark. As for where he is, well isn't that obvious? He's right in the middle of this crowd!" The private looked pleased with himself, while Rage and Eric were both confused. It was best checking it out properly. Rage realised he was probably in his dark form, but how and why were questions that could be answered another time.
"Okay, let me past so I can get to the centre." Eric said to the private. The privates eyes bulged as he looked annoyed.
"I had to practically fight for this spot, I'm not letting you past!" The private looked at Eric harshly. Eric let out an irritated sigh. Eric pulled back part of the coat he had on that was hiding his military uniform, the privates eyes wandered down to the insignia that housed itself upon the uniform that Eric was wearing. Once again the privates eyes bulged as he saw the insignia that Eric was adorning.
"As your Colonel I order you to step aside soldier." Eric said harshly. The private looked like he was going to shit himself as he hastily moved out of the way. "I ought to have you demoted for that insulting tone, lucky for you there is no way that you can be any lower than you already are. I suggest you watch who you talk to in future or you may end up with a severe punishment." The private looked at his feet in a humble manner, not wanting to be punished in any way.
Eric walked straight past him with Rage right in toe, the private looked up swiftly to see Rage laughing at him and gave him a deep glare as the two walked through the crowd like a knife through butter. "What a dick." He mumbled under his breath. Rage turned his head to look at him, nodding to show that he had heard. The private clasped his hand to his mouth as they disappeared from view.
It took them a couple of minutes to get to the middle of the crowd, but eventually they found a small clearing circling a brown Echidna and a black Hedgehog holding the dead body of a red Echidna. The black hedgehog could be seen talking to some of the younger privates that made it into the centre of crowd, it sounded like he was giving them battle tips. Rage and Eric approached him and as they got closer Rage shouted out "Hey Sonic." Sonic stopped mid sentence to the recruits and turned round to see Rage stand just behind him grinning.
"Who said that?" Sonic said darkly. Eric looked between Rage and Sonic quite bewildered. Rage however grinned at Sonic.
"I said it." Rage announced to Sonic. Dark Sonic's arm suddenly shot out, holding him by his neck and lifting him off the ground. Sonic looked right into Rages Emerald green eyes with his own darkened Emerald green eyes.
"Only my friends can call me that." Sonic said darkly before dropping Rage back to the ground and swiftly turning his back on them. Rage landed on his feet and, with a look of enragement, made his way to the black hedgehog. Eric stuck his hand out in Rages way. Rages stopped and let his anger slowly subside as Eric approached Sonic.
"Is that Knuckles you're carrying?" Eric asked. He already knew the answer, but he needed to remove any hope and doubt in his mind. Sonic once again turned round, he was visibly upset within his eyes but his face betrayed no sadness and revealed only anger.
"It is indeed." Sonic replied. Eric faltered, his breath catching slightly as the news hit him. He had prepared for it but, well, he obviously hadn't prepared for that blow quite as much as he thought he had. He hadn't prepared enough.
Sonic noticed that Eric's upset and his face softens slightly looking at Rage again he scowled before returning to Eric as he spoke. "This is truly a blow to our army. Our troops will no doubt of had their moral kicked from underneath them. As I most certain have." Eric looks up to the sky and in the distance can see the cloud ever so slowly reclaiming the sky that it had lost. "We should all head back inside before any type of reinforcements appear."
"Pah! Reinforcements. I could take them all on by myself." Sonic scoffed as he started walking down towards the gate, the crowd parting and moving along with him as he headed there. Everyone slowly moving back so that he was at the front and all were following him as he walked with Knuckles in his arms.
"Everyone!" Eric shouted, no one seemed to hear him as the chatter and shouting simply continued. "Everyone!" Eric shouted once again. Again no one fell quiet.
"Everyone shut up!" Sonic shouted at the crowd. Suddenly they were all silent.
"We're going to have a funeral for Knuckles and all of the lost soldiers in a few days after all of the dead bodies have been collected and identified so we can put them on the memorial pillar. I will make sure it is announced in the next coming days on the television. All of you return to your homes until then." Eric concluded his speech to the crowd. Almost straight after he had finished Sonic started walking again and Eric quickly followed in toe. The rest of the crowd started shouting and talking among themselves once again. There seemed to be more upset than there was before. Obviously a lot of people hadn't yet heard the bad news that Knuckles had perished in the battle. They reached the gate and there was a figure standing there with a rather sombre look on his face.
"Hey." Slayde shouted to Rage and Eric. Eric and Rage nodded while Sonic just looked at him. He recognised him and was pretty sure he was one of the ones Sonic owed his life to. Sonic also nodded to him as the crowd made it through the gate.
Two days later.
"And so it is now that we are forced to say goodbye to so many good soldiers, each of you will have known separate people. Many of you will have known at least once of the people well, whether he or she be in your squad, or it be a loved one as part of your family.
"But all of you will have known Commander Knuckles. If not fully you will have known him by name or in passing. He was always a hot tempered and gullible guy in the early days. But as the war progressed he became cooler. More calculating with his decisions. And always worked things out before he took someone's word for it.
"Despite him being the head of the army he was always a kind person, as I'm sure everyone who had worked with him knew. He was self sacrificing and always made sure that his decisions were the best for the army and the members it contained, even if that meant extra strain and stress on himself.
"Unlike most leaders of armies that we knew, he always fought on the front line with his fellows, something that he knew one day would lead to his downfall. Many owe their lives to him, and many would have gladly took his place.
"Words cannot describe how upset many of you must be from the passing of whomever was closest to you, words cannot describe how much I will miss Knuckles. But. I hope that everyone here will make sure that Knuckles or anyone else who died today has not died in vain. That all of you will take away from this a lesson. Make sure that anything you made a mistake in doing you do not do next time. Learn from this experience and make it harder for the bots to do anything.
"With all that said. We say our final goodbyes to those who have left us today, let us all hope that they have a good afterlife. You shall all be missed dearly. Normally someone as important as Knuckles would have been buried rather than cremated. But Knuckles said to me just hours before the end that he wanted no special treatment. He wanted to be burned along with his army. So this is it.
"Goodbye Knuckles."
Tails finished his speech standing next to the memorial pillar which contained the ashes of every soldiers body they had recovered. Tails looked out to see how many people were present. The crowds went on almost as far back as the eye could see. So many people had turned up for this funeral, more than ever. Obviously a lot of people loved and respected Knuckles as the great leader he was. Tails made his way to the small group he could see that was made of what was left of the old Sonic team who were in the city. Sonic put his hand upon Tails' shoulder as he stood next to him. The priest could be heard in the background talking about something to do with the Goddess and the afterlife.
"That was a good speech pal." Sonic said. Tails looks round at him and smiles.
"Thanks Sonic. Let's get out of here before the crowds start moving towards the city." The group swiftly moved towards the Jeep that was to take them to the edge of the main city. Rage broke off from the group and headed for the gate.
"I'm going to help with guard duty! See you all whenever!" Rage shouted at them as he jogged towards the gate.
The Jeep stopped letting them off, Shadow and Amy went off and headed back to their room, Slayde hopped off and walked off going wherever he normally disappears to, a mystery to them all. Tails got off the Jeep and Sonic followed right behind him. "Where we off then Tails?" Sonic asks.
"We're going to my office, that is as long as you want to tag along anyway." Tails replied. They walked without talking for while, the noise of all the people making it hard to hear one another. Suddenly a protester jumped across and tried to stab Tails with a short knife. Sonic was there in a flash and had his hand round the protesters arm. He swiftly kicked him causing him to soar into the side. The male human hit the wall and slid down with a groan. A couple of people started taking pictures of the scene while Sonic glared heavily at the person who had just attacked Tails.
Tails and Sonic continue to walk again "What was all that about?" Sonic asked.
"Some people here seem to view me as a bad person. I don't know why but for some reason they seem to believe that I'm out to try and rule the world!" Tails looked both confused and irritated. Sonic could see why. It's annoying when all you want to do it help but people just hate on you.
"That's just completely stupid! What idiots would be doing that!" Sonic exclaimed.
"It is really. I don't get how it happened." Tails looked round at Sonic and saw his now black tainted fur. "You've changed a lot Sonic."
"Well I was quite bluntly shown this world isn't sunshine and daisies." Sonic said abruptly. Tails falls silent and so does Sonic as they continue to make their way to the office.
After several more minutes they finally enter one of the buildings, Sonic notes it's one of the tallest nine kilometre ones. As they enter suddenly a whole bunch of security swarmed round to check who it was. Then they spotted who it was. "Oh Tails sir, we didn't expect you back so soon!" One of them said.
"Yeah Geoffrey, the funeral didn't take as long as expected." Tails replied to the one that talked.
"You brought someone, is he the one who helped greatly with the war effort?" The guard asked, pointing at Sonic.
"He is indeed. We're just going up to my room, I'm going to inform him of the latest info we have on Robotnik." Tails replied to the guard.
"Brilliant! It's good to see who helped the war effort so much Mr. Dark." Sonic smiled slightly before following Tails past the guards. The elevator opens before Tails even gets to it and someone gets out.
"Hello Tails, good to see you! Hope the speech at the funeral went well?" A Hippo in a lab coat said, most likely a scientist.
"Yes it went very well thanks. I hope that we can all try and move on from this incident before Robotnik attacks again." Tails replied, looking slightly sombre as his head drooped.
"The people are strong Sir! I'm sure that we shall be just fine." The Scientist said. "I'm in a rush so must be on my way! The wife is cooking a roast and I've been given strict orders not to be late!" Tails chuckled slightly as the Hippo walked off swiftly.
"Hope you enjoy it!" Tails said loud enough for him to hear before he turned round to see Sonic standing in the elevator holding open the door.
"I'm waiting." Sonic said in the cocky manner he always used to say it in. Tails smirked again as he rushed in.
"Press the top floor button Sonic." Sonic immediately obeyed and pressed it for his pal. After a couple minutes of silence Sonic spoke.
"This place is really amazing, I'm really impressed with what you've done in my absence Tails." Sonic complemented the fox. Tails laughs in a bashful way.
"It wasn't all me. Without the Echidnas and their metal there would be no city!" Tails announced. Very happy inside that Sonic complemented him.
"Some serious shit must have gone down while I wasn't here, right?" Sonic said solemnly, sad that he wasn't there for it all.
"A lot has. Mobius and Earth were fused. A lot of people we used to know are long dead." Tails said, head drooping again.
"There has to be some way of stopping this oversized dick head!" Sonic said angrily, punching the door and leaving a slight mark.
"There is, it's just practically impossible!" Tails said still solemnly staring at his feet in defeat.
"Between me and Shadow it should be no problem!" Sonic exclaimed. "We even have Amy who seems to be blossoming in her powers and this guy 'Slayde' who doesn't seem to be as strong as Shadow and myself but is far stronger than average."
"Yeah, I guess you're right. It's been so long since you've been round that I've been losing faith. It won't be easy though!" Tails said to him, perking up a lot.
"And how often do I do things that are easy?" Sonic said cockily, some of his old attitude coming back. Tails grinned at him when suddenly the door opened. Revealing his floor. They both make their way in.
"I actually normally have an assistant here, wonder where she got too..." Tails announced. Instead going up to a panel that that needed to scan Tails' eye. Tails quickly scanned it and headed inside, pulling Sonic in behind him. The doors immediately shut once Sonic was through.
Sonic looked round the office, no, the workshop with awe. It had a small chamber in the middle with what Sonic assumed was the two fake Emeralds in it powering the city and shield. But that wasn't all. The entire room was covered in different projects and different types of gun that had been built were hanging all round the wall. Nearest Tails' desk was a project that looked like it had seven Emerald slots in. It also had four handles round it that people were obviously meant to hold onto. The whole thing looked like it was no bigger than something that fit into a rucksack. "Impressive isn't it."
Tails broke him out his thoughts and Sonic turned to him sitting behind his desk, grinning. "So Tails. How did you get captured?"
"Ah well. I was visiting another freedom fighter base you see. I needed to take them an EMP device I had finished. It also needed installing which was something only a few people could do." Tails explained to Sonic. Sonic nodded, then asked another question.
"Why aren't all the fighters here?" Sonic pointed out. This seemed like one of the strongest fortresses he's ever seen.
"Ah, well you see Robotnik has many bases in many places. We need to try and keep an eye on him at all times so we have mobile bases. Some freedom fighters even go it solo. Mainly being spies. Oh yeah, Rouge is the leader of the spies, though you might have guessed that!" Tails explained to Sonic. Sonic looks at Tails impressed.
"I bet it's hard being in control of all this! I'm impressed mate." Sonic told Tails.
"Yeah, it is pretty hard. We get attacked by those sort of armies every month or two at an inconsistent rate. This last one was three months wait and that was the largest yet. Normally we decimate the army with ease." Tails tells Sonic, slightly worried.
"I'm pretty amazed that you all hold them off so well! Well done on that!" Sonic told his brother.
"Unfortunately we don't know where Robotnik is. He moved base before the base exploded from you all attacking it. How he escaped I shall never know. I doubt he died because his armies wouldn't attack without his command."
"It's a bit of a pressing matter not knowing where he is! Do we have any clues as to where he is located?" Sonic asked. Tails shook his head solemnly before changing the subject.
"Each of his bases is surrounded by a small city of metal that are each full of various kinds of worker bots. These cities are constantly patrolled by offensive type bots." With a press of a button he brought up holographic images of three different types of bases. "Over half of the bases are like this one." He points towards the middle image. "We've discerned that he makes offensive type bots in these. About a third of them are made of that one to your left. We've discerned that these make worker type bots. And finally the rest, minus one, are made in the final design. These make his larger robots that take days to complete."
"So how's that last one designed?" Sonic asked curiosity getting the better of him.
"Well no matter how hard we try we just cannot find the schematics for that last one, that one being base 7E. This leads us to assume that something unusual is going on in that base. From the outside it looks far more heavily guarded then most as well, so it is quite likely where he went." Tails replied.
"That's very interesting, I wonder what he's up to in that area!" Sonic says in a curious tone.
Tails then pulls up some schematics on a strange looking robot. One with some form of cockpit. "This robot is half a kilometre tall." Tails explains. "All we've managed to get our hands on is the exterior schematics and can't get anything else like the interior, power source, etc. But. This is what we believe is being built in that base by Robotnik, quite possible personally."
"That's one impressive piece of machinery! Do you not have anything on what it can do?" Sonic asked.
"It is a piece of machinery that would take a long time to make, possibly even months." Tails explained. "Rouge stumbled across the schematics half a year ago, they were quite freshly made." Tails breathed in heavily. "I along with a few others believe that the normal attacks from the robotic army are in fact some form of 'suppressing fire' forcing us to try and defend as well as possible behind these walls while he builds that to tries and destroy the city once it's done."
"We need to stop him then! Come on if you give me directions and stuff then I'll go stop him right now!" Sonic exclaimed, excitedly standing up.
"Sonic! You can't!" Tails shouted at him, knocking Sonic out of his excitement.
"And may I ask, why not?" Sonic responded.
"The whole planet is covered in his many bases, most places are far too toxic to cross or go anywhere near without proper gear. The easiest way is to try and take down his bases and regain control of the earth to reduce the amount of pollution in the air and get rid of those toxic patches." Tails said to him calmly, Sonic had sat back down again.
"But we have so little time Tails!" Sonic speaks in a raised voice.
"Sonic, we must." Tails insists. Sonic relaxes and backs off. He's always known Tails to know what he's talking about.
"I really want him gone too Sonic, but we can't rush this and fail." Tails explains to Sonic.
"Okay bud." Sonic said sympathetically. "It must be far worse than you, being cramped up in that box means I haven't had to go through it for all that time." Tails smiled at Sonic.
"Thank you for understanding Sonic."
