9. An Eighth Emerald
Shadow made it to the edge of the Pumpkin Hills before Rouge and the plane arrived. It appeared to be an canyon filled with mesas and the odd stone shapes resulting from wind and water acting on rock over eons. Until he found a vantage point and actually got a look at the country ahead of him.
What in the world? The shapes weren't as abstract or random as he'd expected. The Pumpkin Hills were evidently so-named because most of the rocks were in fact shaped like enormous jack o' lanterns on varying stalks. After a quick glance to make sure he didn't see an approaching plane, he looked back to his map. Oh. They're artificially enhanced. He looked uncertainly at the nearest smirking face. I'd certainly hope so. The idea that anything like this could be natural was just too...weird. Not to mention unnerving. The map's blurb was brief, but apparently most of the 'hills' had been pillars of rock with blobby boulders on top, until someone had thought to make a theme park out of the area and 'shaped' them a bit. The park itself had never come to be, but there were a few remnants like an abandoned castle that had been built for it, and of course, the hills themselves, which were a minor tourist attraction.
A set of rails stretched around and between some of them, presumably intended for cable cars or some similar sort of ride. Now they were rather rusty and some were broken, although the supports attached just below Shadow's vantage point seemed well embedded in the rock. He looked up again as his radio crackled at him and Rouge's voice came on. "Shadow, they're in that blue plane, spotted at eleven o'clock."
"Copy that," he radioed back. "I'm in pursuit." It was a small blue and yellow propeller plane, but he could feel the Emerald inside as it approached. It wasn't going to actually fly overhead, though, it was going to pass some ways in front of him. He took another glance at the rails below him and jumped, sliding down one the way he had slid down the cables of the Golden Span bridge.
The next few minutes were...interesting. Actually it was rather exhilarating for the dark-furred hedgehog as he leapt from rail to rail and vaulted between the massive pillars of stone with the ground so far below as to be an indistinct blur. A few times he lightdashed along lines of rings, which evidently were coalescing in this area as well. A further dash, this time of excitement, was added by his discovery (as a laser bolt flashed past him) that GUN was also monitoring the area. He wasn't sure whether the robots were after him or Tails' plane, but he didn't hesitate to take advantage of their presence, leapfrogging across several inconveniently wide gaps by homing consecutively along a line of Beetles. He was the Ultimate Life-Form! These puny mechanicals had no hope of hindering him! He'd never had a challenge like this when he was on the ARK.
He got a nasty shock as he bounced off one last Beetle onto a "pumpkin's" head and dashed out on a steel beam to find - empty air. Drat! He pinwheeled his arms as he tried to brake his momentum before he launched himself into space. Good thing no one saw that, he thought, blushing slightly from embarrassment. Not one of my more graceful moments. Where'd the plane go? He sighed as he saw it heading out into the desert that was on the other side of the pumpkin-studded badlands, and raised his radio to his mouth.
"Doctor, they're heading directly towards us. What should we do?"
"Just sit tight," the scientist replied. "I've got them on radar. There's no way they can get away. I don't know what they're planning, but I'll be sure to give them a warm welcome."
"Roger that. Shadow out." He put the radio away and watched the plane fading into the distance. Sit tight? Surely the Doctor doesn't mean for me to sit up here on this rock indefinitely? Shadow frowned, considering his options. After a moment he raised his radio again. "Rouge, where are you?"
Her reply was faint and a bit fractured. "I'm bac- on board the ARK. Did -ou catch them?"
"No, the Doctor is arranging something at the pyramid," Shadow answered. She signed off and he looked around again. There didn't seem to be any GUN patrols around at the moment, and the combination of hot sunlight and cool breeze was very pleasant, albeit completely unlike anything he'd experienced on the ARK. Now that he had the leisure to actually think about them, though, the open spaces were a bit discomfiting. He pictured the Doctor's pyramid in his mind and teleported himself away from the peculiar pumpkin-headed hills.
Arriving in the much more enclosed room that the Doctor had assigned him, he could almost feel the weight of the stone above him. A strange rumbling noise could be felt vibrating through the massive blocks that formed the walls and floor. Shadow kicked on his hover shoes and glided out of the chamber to seek the source. He found it in a large chamber near where Doctor Eggman stored his emergency shuttle.
Shadow had arrived via a passage that was about halfway up the wall of a vast circular chamber. A railing across the end was the only thing keeping anyone from wandering off into open air. Below him the blue hedgehog was bouncing around a massive stone giant that was attempting to squash him. Shadow snorted. He'd already seen enough of this Sonic to know that the lumbering golem had as much chance of catching the dokan as a snail had of outracing a cheetah. Still, it might be educational to watch the fight. He sat down and propped his arms on the bottom rail while dangling his legs into space.
Sonic was weaving around the moving statue, easily dodging the relatively slow swings of the arms - of course there was plenty of power behind those swings, one blow would literally flatten him. His target seemed to be a set of plates jutting from the golem's back; using them like a ladder, he bounced up to launch an attack against a blue orb on top of the thing's head. Judging by its condition, he'd probably done this a few time before Shadow's arrival. The second time Shadow saw him strike the orb, it broke off completely and the enormous statue collapsed and went still while the blue hedgehog - together with a red-spined dokan, the pink hedgehog who'd hugged Shadow on Prison Island and a fox cub who was presumably Tails - scurried off towards the shuttle bay. Almost directly beneath Shadow, Doctor Eggman gave a shriek of outrage and started to pursue the group.
A massive fist nearly flattened the man's walker and put an end to the pursuit rather quickly. Shadow half-rose - the golem had overcome its paralysis and was in motion again. He heard the human say something he couldn't quite make out, and then saw him shooting at the stone giant. Shadow hesitated, then sat back down again; this human seemed quite able to defend himself.
It didn't take long for Eggman to blast a few holes in the stone armor and shut down what turned out to be a robot made to look like a stone golem. It was long enough, though, for the opposing group to launch the shuttle. Shadow assumed they were heading for the ARK and went to meet the Doctor in the teleporter control room.
Somewhat to his surprise, the Doctor didn't want him to go back to the ARK. "That bat-girl is already up there. Let her prove her worth for a change," grumbled Eggman. After calling up to the ARK and giving Rouge the news of the expected arrivals and the password to activate the security systems, he told Shadow to monitor things. "I haven't had a proper meal yet today. It'll take them about an hour to get to the ARK; I'll be back by then."
Shadow obediently sat himself down in front of the computer. After a brief trial-and-error period, he figured out how to shunt the programs monitoring the ARK and the shuttle to one side of the screen, enabling him to open a link of his own to the ARK's computer. Although Rouge had given him some potentially helpful advice, he still wasn't sure he trusted her. The fact that someone on the ARK was trying to get into the Project: Shadow files served to solidify his suspicions. Locating a query program, he set it to locate records on Earth pertaining to a white dokan bat named Rouge. He also ran a search for information on hypnotism, and flash training such as he'd received before he'd been awakened originally. Rouge had said the two were related...
The second query brought up a plethora of information and he spent most of the hour sorting through it before notifying the Doctor that the shuttle was about to arrive at the ARK, forwarding the items that looked important to the ARK's computer. The doctor glanced at the screen - which Shadow had cleared of his own searches and returned to the original ARK and shuttle programs - and dismissed Shadow to get himself some food.
When the black hedgehog returned, he found a rather perplexed Eggman frowning at a schematic of the ARK. Two glowing points were marked on the map. "This is strange," he muttered, "It's showing energy readings fromtwo separate Chaos Emeralds. Did they really think they could trick me with that fake Emerald?"
Shadow started to move towards the transporter but the Doctor interrupted him. "Wait, Shadow! I'm the one who should be telling them the end is near, not you!
"Now is the time to end this long drawn-out battle, and mark myself a place in history as the ultimate genius! If something happens to me, I'm counting on you to finish the job! The moment for attack has come! It's now or never!" The walker clomped onto the transporter and vanished. Shadow realized he was standing there with his mouth open.
He closed his mouth. That must be what they mean by 'a raving madman'. I've never seen anyone act that way... I wonder if Professor Gerald did, later. It was still hard to comprehend that though scant days had passed for Shadow since the Professor put him into stasis, fifty years had come and gone for everyone else. The Doctor had condescended to tell him that his grandfather had died on Prison Island, less than a year after the 'ARK incident' and the mere existence of the colony had been all but forgotten since. 'Long before this...world I'm in'...? Is that it, Maria used to sing it. 'Long before this time...What was there? Who cared, to make it begin?' I do know that much at least. Maria cared. And Gerald cared, but maybe too much.
I suppose, he glanced up at the screen which still showed the intruders moving through the colony, I'd better go on up, in case the Doctor needs assistance. The last Emerald must be put into place.