A Big Problem, A New Adventure
"Uh oh." Sharel worriedly said as the whirring of the helicopter stopped and the building stopped shaking. Sonic and Jet didn't hesitate, rushing out the door. The duo's friends looked at each other in curiosity before dashing off to catch up with the hedgehog and hawk, followed by the falcon along with Petro and Felder.
"Well, well, well, look what we have here, the guardian of the island." A familiar voice shouted from atop of the base as the group dashed outside. They quickly turned around and looked up, a snarl set on Sonic's face as he recognized the figure.
"Abraham." He growled, narrowing his eyes at the smirking human.
"Hello, Sonic. Had a nice time dealing with your friends?" the G.U.N. Commander replied as he glanced at the others he had given the mission to in the first place. Two soldiers stood by his side, each carrying a combat rifle in their hands. Behind them were four soldiers carrying shotguns and snipers.
"It was all a setup, wasn't it?" Shadow shouted as they all took their fighting position. He chuckled slightly before replying.
"Yes, if he had gotten rid of you like the guardian is supposed to do, I wouldn't have to deal with any other pests and just have Sonic and Jet to worry about, but since he didn't, you provided at least a good distraction so I can retrieve a very precious item from the island. Now if you excuse me, I got an emerald to study." The commander turned around speaking to the guard on his right, "Tell all troops that the objective is complete and they are to return to base." The soldier pulled out a communicator, repeating the main parts of the commander's orders, before entering the helicopter with the others. The helicopter's propeller began to turn once more, lifting the copter above the trees through the circular gap and away from the island. Sonic began walking away toward the entrance of the village.
"Where do you think, you're going, Faker." Shadow said as he rushed in front of him before he had made it out the hole, crossing his arms as he glared at his rival.
"Move out the way, Shadow, I have to check on something important and make sure it still there." Sonic said as the others had caught up.
"Can we come along?" Tails asked as he walked up to the hedgehog, "I want to figure out what this emerald that the Commander was talking about."
"Yeah, and how come I can't have that jewel to myself." Rouge replied with a pout.
"Fine, it should be in a cave at top of the mountain several miles west of here. It would take someone a whole day to get there, and that's with super speed. I do, have an easier way to get there though, but I need some room." Sonic replied as he took his gloves off and tossing them to Jet, who easily caught them.
"You are lucky, he never allows anyone to see the emerald unless special occasions. Even the ones that guard the emerald aren't allowed inside." Petro said, perched on Jet's shoulder as the group backed away. The hawk replied in agreement.
"How do we get there faster?" Wave asked, slightly confused. Sonic chuckled slightly at the response before replying.
"I have other abilities beside super speed." He said as he body began to glow. The most of the members of the group stared in wonder and shock as the blue hedgehog's fur hardened and turned into scales and were darkened slightly, but the glow had increased its intensity and was now blinding the group. All except for the two quills near the middle of his back had disappeared. The two remaining quills grew into large wings, a sky blue membrane making the wings looking alike jagged fans and two small horns were formed at the tip. Two horns, bent back slightly like a goat, grew out the top of his head. His nose and mouth moved outward, forming a scaly snout. His eyes became a brighter green, but seemed to experience little change. His neck grew longer and two frills formed beside his neck. His tail grew longer; given a reptilian look, and two spikes curving toward the tip grew near the edge. The bones and his legs and arms broke, shifted, and fuse in different ways, forcing the hedgehog onto all fours. His hands became longer and on each fingertip was an inch long claw. His feet were given five, their formation slightly similar to a bird. Each also had a claw, but half an inch shorter than the hands. Now placed around his neck was a gold chained necklace with a water medallion attached to it, glowing brightly in different colors. The glow began to subside, the group looked up and the group gasped in shock, except for Shadow who simply had a look of surprise on his face. Standing in front of them in place of the hedgehog was a large dragon, roughly the same size as the base.
"Due to my 'unique' family heritage, I had developed the ability to shape-shift into any blood-related member of my family." The dragon replied before lying down on the ground, "Come on, no time to lose." He unfolded one of his wings, making it easier for the group to reach his back. Tails and Rouge flew up to the dragon form of Sonic's back. Knuckles glided up to meet them in took a seat behind them. The Babylon Rouges used the wing as a support to reach the back, but instead of sitting with his comrades, Jet sat at the front of the group, right in front of Tails. Shadow, however, resented climbing aboard and had to be persuaded by Rouge to climb on, though, he had a frown on his face before sitting in front of Knuckles, but behind Rouge.
"Everyone, hold on to a ridge," Jet said as he carefully grabbed the frills. Looking back, the hawk saw that each mobian had a tight grip on the row of ridge that grew straight down Sonic's back, "we're ready for takeoff." The left wing began to unfurl, snapping open with a slight crack as the dragon stood up, making his passenger grip what they were holding to stay on the scaly back even harder. Sonic turned himself around where he was now facing the gap in the trees. The wing began to flap at a steady pace as Sonic rushed toward the opening, "Hold on tight, once we're over the trees it'll be smooth flying." Right before they were sent crashing into the side of the metal base, Sonic launched himself upward, jerking the mobians on his back as he quickly flapped his wings to gain momentum. After clearing several miles above the trees, Sonic straighten himself so that he was now horizontal the swaying trees below and turned westward. Just as he said, sitting several miles away from the village was a mountain whose peak easily cleared the cloud layer that surrounded it. His wing beats grew slower until it was as if he glided most of the way. They were far above the island to have a better chance of seeing the whole island. Its shape was unique; from a certain few it would have the shape of a slug. Near the middle was the village, easily spotted by its hole. The mountain, directly in the middle of the island was covered in cliffs and had a road running up the side of it up to halfway. Sitting on the largest cliff was another town, not as badly damaged as the one in the forest, but had dealt its fair share in the war. Sonic angled himself so he was flying over the clouds, the already freezing air becoming colder as he did so. As they approach the top of the mountain, right below the peak was another large cliff with a large cave. A polar bear and a penguin seemed to be in the middle of an argument, an artic fox holding back the bear and a wolverine holding back the penguin.
"It's your fault, how could you let this happen." The polar growled at the penguin, trying not to hurt the fox in front of him.
"My fault," the penguin retaliated angrily, "you're five times bigger than me, and you should've been able to scare them off. Now what do we do, the Guardian would be mad to find out…" the penguin stopped as the animals noticed Sonic approaching.
"Seem like he already knows." The wolverine whispered worriedly. The dragon landed and all of the mobians onboard got off, landing with a thud on the snow, sinking ankle deep in the snow. AS the last one got off, Sonic was engulfed in the same glowing light before changing back into a hedgehog.
"Move aside, Roger, Herbert." Sonic said as he addressed the penguin and the polar bear. The duo quickly stepped inside, gulping slightly as the hedgehog and companions entered.
"You're so dead." Petro chuckled slightly as he passed by the two creatures before rushing to catch up with the others. The inside of the cave was decorated in various gems, from pearls to diamond, causing Rouge, Wave, and Storm to gaze upon them in a trance-like state.
"Got a lot of jewels on this island, Blue, you won't mind if a few go missing do ya?" Rouge asked as she continued to stare at the jewel-covered wall, nearly reaching out to grasp a loose sapphire out of the wall.
"I would, so hands off." Sonic replied as a wall of air surrounded the sapphire. Rouge frowned in disappointment before following the group into a large area. "No!" Sonic shouted as he looked around the room. Torches lit the wall similar to the chaos emerald filled one, but instead had four murals on the wall, two on each side. Each had a picture of one of the four dragons and that info specifically on the dragon itself. In the middle of the area was the reason for the hedgehog's outburst. An alter half the size of the master emerald alter and only had four pillars surrounding it. Each pillar was covered in jewels going around like a coil, and on top of each was the statue of the dragon standing on what could be a small pedestal with the mural of the dragon to the left or right side of it. On each pedestal was a medium-sized slot of varies sizes, each was empty and the statue seemed a bit dull. On top of the alter was another pedestal, but the top was completely bare.
"What's wrong?" Wave asked as she examined the alter in curiosity.
"The Shift Emerald and the Dragon Gems were stolen." Jet said as he stared, a mixed sounding of shock and anger in his voice.
"What are they?" Shadow asked as he crossed his arms and glanced at the hawk, but continued to examine the room.
"The Dragon Gems," Sonic started as he faced the group, "are four powerful jewels that each of my ancestors since their birth. You can kind of call it their birth stones. Each has different abilities granted to its holder. Cane's aquamarine allows the person ability to control water and air. Blackwing's agate gives the ability to disappear and move like a shadow. Starkage's aventurine allows control over natural disasters. But the worst of all is Rasgnarok's onyx. It has the ability to recreate or reanimate the dead and to the person's personal servants." The blue hedgehog's friend began to show a look of worry or surprise on their faces, "Now the Shift Emerald is a light-blue chaos emerald that shape-shifts between the four gems. Depending on its form will depend on the ability received. It original form has characteristic a bit similar to a topaz, but it mostly look like a chaos emerald."
"A shape-shifting jewel, I could use one of those in my collection." Rouge said as she imagined the appearance of the jewel.
"No way are you going to get off with my emerald." Shadow grunted humorously at the comment as he looked at his rival.
"Your emerald and you called me being possessive." The red-striped hedgehog replied with a smirk on his face. The blue hedgehog let out a small growl in retaliation before sharply replying.
"Of course I would say 'my emerald' because I'm the one who created it." The blue hedgehog snapped, glaring at its look-alike with pure frustration while everyone except for the hawk, parrot, wolf, and falcon looked completely surprised.
"Wait; wait, you telling us, that you're the one who created the Shift Emerald." Knuckles said as he seemed a bit more confused than shocked. From all his personal studying deciphering, he never imagined that a chaos emerald could be easily created. Yeah, you can make one, but they were easily classified as fakes if you attempt to use any chaos power with. Making one that acted completely like an actual chaos emerald was supposed to be impossible, at least, in his and everyone else book of logic. Sonic took one deep breathe before replying in a softer tone.
"Yes, each generation of guardian creates their own personal chaos emerald, though, very few are considered unique. A guardian creates his/her chaos emerald when that person has discovered their chaos energy; mine was discovered a few weeks after I was born. I had a, very unique childhood that most of it I would rather stay hidden." the blue hedgehog glanced over at Jet before keeping his attention on the interested group, "we should discuss that at another time, but back to what I was saying earlier, watch guardian's emerald is unique by the persons special ability. I was first thought that my special ability was super speed, but it wasn't really unique because lots of family member had the same ability, but it was only a heritage gene. Two weeks later I discovered my true special ability, shape-shifting between the different species in my family and that's why the emerald has its unique shape-shifting ability, and that is another reason why the island is kept a secret." Everyone nodded in agreement.
"So, how do we get them back?" Tails asked as sonic sighed slightly.
"We'll need some help from my uncle," the blue hedgehog stole another glance at the hawk who had a worried expression just as his, "and I'll believe he won't like any of this one bit."