Speedy's note: Sorry for the long wait this time, guys. Life happened.
Only One Sonic
Metal Sonic strode through the portal into the Emerald laboratory, his right claw locked around the ankle of his nemesis. The blue hedgehog's body dragged over the plain floor, his quills a mess and his arms and second leg limp. He was unconscious for now, and even in the unlikely case he should be aroused from the sedation, the drugs would still wreck enough havoc on his systems to incapacitate him for another 24 hours during which he wouldn't function properly. Metal had made sure he would be no threat to him this time. He'd learned to be careful.
Dropping the dead weight in front of the control panel, Metal didn't waste any sensory capacity on the hedgehog. It seemed almost ridiculous to him how easily the hardware of a biological creature could be manipulated through the use of simple chemicals injected into its fuel lines. Another reason that made his design the superior one.
The blue robot activated the machine, his secondary processing unit again checking the Master Emerald's energy patterns. The outflow was beginning to rise and change in frequency as his controlling machine began drawing power from the crystal.
Grabbing the despised hedgehog around the waist, Metal Sonic lifted the unresponsive body and hosted him up onto the table-like panel of the power transmitting device. For a second he looked at the spiky lump, triumph beginning to register in the circuiting of his AI, then he returned to the controls to initiate the process.
Once it had started, the robot stood back, all sensory alert. He was, as close as robots can get to it, curious what was going to happen, if it would work as he had calculated, what it would be like. He had read about it, in ancient scrolls of the echidna culture as much as in his creator's recordings, but making it happen for real was outstanding. He was the first to activate the process in thousands of years, and the first to do through the use of technology. He was a great chaos controller to master this feat, a lot greater than the hedgehog and his echidna associate combined. He was –
Metal Sonic's fit of ego was interrupted when the energy readings reached the calculated peak level. The radiation was so intense it interfered heavily with his optical sensory. All Metal could see was the brightest green light covering his nemesis' body, consuming it. It lasted for almost ten seconds before subsiding. As the energy level dropped to what Metal Sonic supposed was its idle condition, the transmitter panel was empty.
If Metal Sonic had been a living creature like his creator, he would have laughed hysterically now. Since he wasn't, he stood still as before, but satisfaction was racing through his algorithms. There was only one Sonic anymore.
Him.
His feet gave metallic echoes on the floor as he was running. Knuckles' eyes lay fixed to the end of the corridor. There was a door and he could tell without needing to open it the Master Emerald was behind it.
The weird outputs of energy had ceased and left just a slight disturbance behind. Whatever had been done to the powerful gem, it had stopped, and Knuckles was decided to prevent it from ever starting again.
Like many others in this weird underwater base, the door slid open automatically as he approached it and he entered another wide, round hall. The walls, floor and ceiling were the same pale silvery blue like the rest of the base, and yet the colouring in this room was different. An emerald green glow hung over the room, emitting from the center of the room.
The look of his precious gemstone almost physically hurt Knuckles. It was strapped to a bizarre sort of machine, numerous wires leading to computers grouped around it. It was glowing, the pulsing of its energy still slightly erratic.
Knuckles dashed the last meters towards it. He didn't spent much time to look at the machines around. For a second he favoured the idea of smashing them all, then common sense kicked in and told him he should better see he got out of here with the Emerald before he was caught and the Emerald endangered yet again.
That decision made, he unhooked the gem from the abusing machinery and lifted it up with both hands, securely holding it over his head. Then he dashed for the exit. He'd wait for the others where they'd left the biplane.
Knuckles was fast, given he was carrying a giant crystal easily more than three times his weight, but he wanted it safe as soon as possible. The echidna was running upwards a green-tinted tunnel, wondering how he'd get from here to the tunnel the three of them had come down on arrival, when he rounded a corner and almost crashed into Tails.
"Eep!", the fox shrieked in surprise, jumping out of the way.
Knuckles was doing his best to keep the large Emerald balanced overhead after dodging his suddenly appeared friend. "Tails!"
"Knuckles!" The two-tailed fox rightened himself much more quickly than the echidna, double tails balancing him out swiftly and elegantly. "Hey, you found the Emerald!"
Knuckles nodded. "Yeah."
"Did you catch the thief?" Now Tails' twin namesakes twirled excitedly. His arms were slung around one of the bubble-like ball things as if he wanted to hug it.
Knuckles frowned. "Nope, there was no-one there when I found the Emerald. It was connected to some sort of machine and –"
"What machine?", Tails interrupted curiously.
The echidna softly shook his head. "Heck, Tails, I don't know. To me, all large glowing machines look the same. Large, glowy, and machine-y, and I don't give a damn what it does. I snatched the Emerald and thought it was best to get it out of there first and wonder about stuff later."
Tails grinned. "I guess that wasn't such a bad idea. In fact, I was on my way back to the Tornado as well. I found a shortcut, I think. Now that you've got the Emerald I think we need one. We don't want to risk losing it again." He looked around, finally seeming to notice the missing third team member. "Where's Sonic?"
"Dunno. I lost him in some kind of big, round room with a bunch of robots in it. We were fighting and something blew up." Knuckles shrugged a little, as much as the heavy Emerald in his hands would allow. "I thought I'd seen him, but he was gone by the time I got there. He wasn't in the room with the Emerald either. Maybe he saw the thief and is chasing him down."
"Uh-huh." Tails nodded. "Sounds like something he'll do."
"I guess it's best we wait for him at the plane," Knuckles suggested. "Sonic can take care of himself." He indicated the ball. "He'll be happy you brought one of those," he noticed with a tiny smile.
The fox giggled. "Yeah. I guess after he had to get into this watery place, he deserves playing with it. And if I'm honest, I'd like to do some research on its properties."
"Uh… Maybe you should do that before you give it to him. Hedgehog has got a tendency to break his toys." Knuckles grinned. Having the Master Emerald back, even though still far from the island and without having gotten a hold of the thief, was doing wonders for his mood.
Tails laughed. "I'll think about it."
"You better do." Knuckles shifted the heavy Emerald in his hands and started towards the exit again. "You coming, Tails?"
Tails nodded again and the two continued uphill until they reached the door and stepped outside of the little building onto the white sand of the beach. Knuckles looked back to the house briefly. Nothing about it betrayed just a bit of the vast underwater maze it led to.
The echidna was pulled out of his thoughts when Tails shouted. "Hey, look! There he is!"
Knuckles turned his head. At the end of the flat, sandy beach sat the Tornado, still in place where they'd left it, and in the back seat, waving at them, was Sonic. Knuckles grinned and shook his head. I worry about you and you beat me here easily… "Fastest thing alive."
Tails giggled lightly. "I've known him for so long and it never ceases to amaze me."
"I know what you mean." Knuckles followed when Tails strolled towards the plane. Stopping next to it, he looked up at the blue hedgehog. "Hey, Sonic. Everything cool?"
"Yup." The hedgehog gave a thumbs-up. "What took you so long?"
Knuckles laughed and nodded towards the Emerald. "That."
"Then we have what we came for, right Knuckles?" Sonic leaned back in the seat. "Let's get home."
Tails held the ball out at the hedgehog. "Look what I got us!"
Sonic stared at it for a moment and smiled a little. "Great, Tails."
The fox blinked. "Do you want to have it? Or should I put it into the cargo space so we don't risk dropping it?"
"Just store it or something." Sonic looked away again.
What had happened to his enthusiasm about the floating bubbles? Knuckles and Tails exchanged a short, slightly worried look, then the fox placed the ball into the cargo hold in the biplane's rear and tailicoptered into the cockpit, and Knuckles hosted the Master Emerald onto the wing before climbing after it. When he safely got into position with the big gem, the echidna turned over his shoulder. Sonic was looking out the side of the plane.
Head titled, Knuckles studied him thoroughly. From just looking at him, he seemed unharmed. Yeah, even the bruises and scrapes he'd gained in the fight in the morning seemed to have vanished. Rings? Must have been a good deal of them to undo the damage Knuckles' fists had inflicted, after several hours no less. Rings worked a lot better instantaneously. Healing an already existing injury with them wasn't usually very effective. But Sonic was known to be a fast healer, and very good at collecting the golden rounds of chaos energy. What irked Knuckles wasn't his appearance but his behavior.
Sonic was sitting in the backseat? On purpose? He let Knuckles ride on the Tornado's wing? That was Sonic's favorite place and usually it needed a lot of persuasion to get him off it. And he'd said 'home'. To Sonic, that word didn't have much meaning normally. He also didn't seem interesting in the mysterious balls he'd loved so much even on first sight anymore at all. Then, he'd called him by his full name. It wasn't that he never did that, but usually just when he was being somewhat serious. At the end of a mission, Sonic used to make jokes and be in a kind of happy mood, and that included calling Knuckles either by the familiar, short 'Knux' or give a comment about the echidna being late and say 'Knucklehead' got lost on the way back. Or something like that.
Today, Sonic was quietly looking at the sand next to the plane's wheels. No mentioning of parties to celebrate the recovery of the Emerald, or just the team's general awesomeness. No mentioning of the amount of chili dogs he planned on putting down later. And no mentioning of the giant killer robots he'd epically dismantled.
Sonic was quiet.
Something was wrong.
