Ch.10: A Calming Kiss

"What happened to him?" said Rouge, looking at Knuckles.

"This what all the Guardians feared" said Remington " Knuckles emotional state has been tainted by unrelenting hatred making his Chaos Form grow dark. He's completely lost control of his actions. No one will be safe from his wrath,"

"And we can't stop him because the Master Emerald shattered the Chaos Emeralds" said Shadow " great, just great,"

"Isn't there any way we can stop this?" Sonic asked Remington.

"We can try" said Remington " but at this rate it won't take long until the entire island is destroyed,"

"Tails!" shouted Sonic " get the X Tornado ready to fly, me and Shadow will meet you there,"

"I'm coming to," said Julie-Su.

"No way" said Vector " its to dangerous,"

"You want to see danger?" said Julie-Su, glaring at the crocodile " then just try to stop me,"

"We have no time to argue" said Shadow, grabbing Julie-su's hand and speeding off " let's go!"

Soon Sonic, Julie-Su, and Shadow boarded the X Tornado along with Tails and took off to the skies. As they approached where Knuckles was Tails pulled out two pairs of sneakers and gave one each to Sonic and Shadow.

"What are these?" asked Sonic.

"Flight shoes" said Tails " after Chris went back to his home planet he left behind these ideas for new super shoes he was planning to design, so I've been working on them. Figure they come in handy someday,"

"Timing couldn't be better" said Shadow as he put on the shoes and looked at Sonic " let's fly!"

With that said both hedgehogs took off to face Dark Chaos Knuckles. The dark echidna saw them coming and fired a birage of Chaos Spears right at them. Sonic and Shadow both managed to dodge the attack, leaving Shadow free to launch a few Chaos Spears of his own.

But Shadow's assualt was blocked by a red energy shield called up by Knuckles. The echidna barely had time to dodge because just then Sonic came spinning in from behind.

Angry at almost being caught off guard Dark Chaos Knuckles sent out a large Chaos Blast knocking over everything in a fifthteen mile radias. Sonic and Shadow were knocked away and Tails had to struggle to get the X Tornado under control.

"This isn't going to work" said Julie-Su from behind Tails " without the Chaos Emeralds Sonic and Shadow are no match for Knuckles, at least not while he's in this state,"

"I can't see any other way around it" said Tails " Knuckles emotions are directly linked with the Master Emerald, that's what's giving him this power. If we can't calm him down we'll have no other choice than to...,"

Tails couldn't finish the sentence, it was to horrible to imagine that might have to destroy Knuckles in order to save the world. a sudden sound made they fox's ears perk up and he turned around to see Julie-Su attaching a Flight Pack to her back.

"Julie-Su, what are you doing?" asked Tails.

"I'm not even going to think of that option" said Julie-Su " if Sonic and Shadow can't stop him, then maybe I can,"

Ignoring the sounds of protests she was getting from Tails Julie-Su flew out of the plane and sped towards Knuckles. Sonic and Shadow had arrived back battered and beaten just in time to see Julie-Su fly fearlessly towards Dark Chaos Knuckles.

"What is she doing?" said Shadow " is she crazy?"

"Julie-Su, come back!" yelled Sonic.

The pink, metal-dreadlocked echidna didn't hear and finally stopped to hover less than two feet away from the glowing black form of Knuckles. Both of the echidnas stared at each other for what felt like minutes as the mysterious force known as the Soultouch slowly connected thier two hearts.

The storm calmed down as the two grew closer, and as they embraced the dark aura surrounding Knuckles body disappeared once again showing his crimson fur, and his eyes sparkled voilet once more.

With anger no longer feeding it the Master Emerald once again glowed filling the world with its purifying light. And to everyone's amazement the shattered remians of the Chaos Emeralds joined together and became whole once more.

Julie-Su was pleased that the world was returning to normal, but even more pleased to have her arms wrapped around Knuckles. But the romantic scene was suddenly thrown out of balance as Knuckles dreary eyes closed and he fainted in Julie-Su's arms.

Landing back on the ground Tails looked over to examine Knuckles, what he had to report wasn't good.

"He used up way to much of his Chaos Energy" said Tails " he's completely drained. If we don't do something fast, Knuckles will die,"