Chapter 10: Eclipse The Darkling PT 2
One hour earlier...
Eclipse wandered throughout different parts of the island taking in his surroundings and discovering more different engines. He'd watched how they talked and what jobs they did. He often nearly ran into several of the mobians like Shade or Bunnie. He managed to stow away on several trains to different places and was forced to pretend to be a regular mobian around humans, if anyone asked, he was a rare kind of hedgehog.
Eventually he arrived at the Windmill where he decided to take a break. Thankfully the weather was pretty nice and there was a light breeze, he looked up at the blue sky. A small chuckle escaped his throat as his tail swished.
"Heh...it's a shame this planet must go honestly...I'll admit it's pretty beautiful...but it won't last for long. I have to complete the mission, I have to collect those chaos emeralds quickly. But where could one be?"
Suddenly out of the corner of his eye, he spotted a shiny object in some bushes. Curious he crawled over and grabbed the item from inside and gasped. It was a chaos emerald...the last one lost after they scattered. He gazed at the shiny gem before hearing a whistle.
"PEEP! PEEP!"
He quickly scurried over to the other side of the windmill when he saw Henry go by with some coal trucks. He was mumbling to himself about the upcoming rain. Eclipse saw his chance and jumped right onto Henry's boiler, clutching the emerald tightly in his claws.
"Now I just need to collect the other 6." Eclipse said.
He peeked down below in the cab seeing the driver and fireman busy talking and looking out the windows. Eclipse stayed on the roof as he gazed out in the distance. Henry was on his way to deliver this coal wanting to get the job done quickly.
"Oh, I really don't want to be caught up in the rain." Henry muttered.
"Ugh...I don't have time for this change in weather, I need to find those emeralds." Eclipse whispered to himself.
Then Toby passed by ringing his bell.
"Hello Henry!"
"Hi Toby."
Eclipse jumped on top of Henrietta, needless to say she was surprised.
"I say, what was that?" She wondered.
"What's wrong?" Toby asked.
"I felt something jump on me."
"Oh I'm not sure."
Eclipse stayed silent until they reached Arensdale End where Vanilla, Cream, Cheese and Gemerl were getting off to go inside the house. Eclipse decided to follow them after seeing that Cream was holding the threee chaos emeralds that Thomas, Annie and Clarabel had found. Thomas had goven them to Cream for safekeeping.
"I need those now! But I need to get it without anyone alerting help." Eclipse tapped his chin.
Upon reaching the house, Eclipse stayed hidden in some bushes as the four went into the house. Now he needed to find a way in. He got out of the bushes and looked through a window. Vanilla was going into the kitchen while Cream, Cheese and Gemerl talked in the living room.
"Ooh I hope they get here soon." Cream sighed.
Eclipse was confused, who else was coming?
"Can we help you?" Came a curious voice behind him.
Eclipse slowly turned around to face a yellow cat and white bat staring at him with tense stares. Eclipse gulped and fiddled with his words while his tail flickered around causing Honey to laugh.
"Hahahahaha! I thought I was the only one who did that when nervous." Honey pointed to his tail.
Eclipse angrily stopped moving his tails and rolled his eyes.
"Alright who are you? We never seen someone like you before, at least I haven't." Rouge put her hands no her hips.
Eclipse had to trick them into thinking he was nice, how hard could that be?
"I'm Eclipse, a lost uh...mobian...just trying to get used to these surroundings." Eclipse said with a nervous smile.
Rouge of course was still skeptical of this alien while Honey seemed to easily buy it.
"Cool, you should join us, Vanilla was making some dinner." Honey said.
Eclipse sweatdropped before Honey grabbed his hands and dragged him inside. Rouge bared her fangs at the alien.
"Hmm...why do I get the feeling this is a bad idea. In fact..."
Rouge had took note of his color scheme...same color as Shadow and the pod...and the pod was broken. Deciding to investigate further, she joined them inside where Honey showed Cream the new alien.
"This is Eclipse, he's lost!" Honey smiled.
"Oh I'm sorry Mr. Eclipse, but don't worry, we can help you get used to your surroundings." Cream said.
She grabbed Eclipse's clawed hands making him feel uncomfortable, but he needed to keep his cool. Nearby Gemerl looked ready to attack Eclipse if he tried anything, Rouge didn't blame him.
"Everyone it's time for dinner!" Vanilla announced from the kitchen.
"YAY!" Cream and Honey shouted.
At the table, Eclipse decided it was the perfect time to get more info on the engines.
"So uh...I saw some of those living machines around here, what's up with them?" Eclipse asked.
Of course as soon as he said that, Cream and Honey went on a long talk about the engines and what has happened on the island since the first day Sonic stepped on the island. Needless to say Eclipse was amazed and more interested...but also worried.
"Huh...these engines are much more powerful than I thought...perhaps too powerful. Maybe they'll need to be destroyed as well...maybe if I find some way to get up to the ARK, I can blast this island away with the Eclipse Cannon...ugh...had to have my name in it."
Rouge had noticed Eclipse was clutching the emerald with his tail.
"Where did you find the emerald?" Rouge asked.
"It was just sitting by the windmill." Eclipse explained.
"I see. Well me and the others just happened to find some more."
Rouge smirked when Eclipse's eyes lit up...so he knows about them after all.
"Soon we're heading to Knapford Station where we're gonna take a ride on the express. Do you want to join us?" Honey asked.
"Uh sure." Eclipse quickly answered.
He needed to nab the emeralds they had before they had a chance to use them or give them to someone else. So Eclipse kept his emerald while he followed the group down to where Toby was waiting. Once they boarded, Rouge sat far away to call Shadow about Eclipse. Eclipse admitted to enjoying Vanilla's food and now enjoying the ride. He often glanced over at Cream and Honey who still had the emeralds.
"Hopefully Mr. Sonic can use these." Cream said.
"I want to see him turn Super Sonic in person! That would be sweet!" Honey clenched her fists.
"Who's Sonic?" Eclipse wondered.
When they arrived at Knapford Station, Gordon was just arriving to let off and pick up more passengers.
"Get in quickly please!" Gordon announced.
Eclipse followed the group, but then he stopped. He leaned back to see Gordon's driver and fireman making sure everything was ready in the cab. He had to act now, or he would have no choice but to directly attack the family. And that bat and robot could probably beat him in his current weak state.
"I'll catch up, I need to use the little alien's room." Eclipse said.
"Okay, hope you can catch up!" Cream waved.
Eclipse sprinted towards Gordon and latched onto the tip of his tender as Gordon prepared to take off. Gordon raced down the main line feeling good about himself, as always. He was pulling 3 coaches and did get a little worried that he may get stuck on the hill.
"Nothing can go wrong today, no more aliens, not more demonic beasts, no more betrayals, just a nice smooth day on the Island of Sodor." Gordon smiled grandly.
Turning down a few bends and passing by a few engines, Gordon made sure to stay in control when he got to his hill. However, Eclipse had finally snuck into the cab, and knocked out both the driver and fireman.
"Time to end this trip."
Eclipse began to fiddle with the controls and Gordon noticed he was going faster and faster.
"Huh...that's strange. I like to go fast, but this may be over doing it." Gordon feared.
He managed to race up his hill while his passengers began to panic, including Cream and the others. Rouge called Shadow again, but it would be too late.
"AAAHHH! I NEED TO SLOW DOWN!" Gordon yelled.
He knew going this fast could cause him to race off the rails, especially with heavy coaches. That's when it happened. as he reached the bottom and entered the tight bend, he began to tip onto his left side all his weight bounced him off the tracks throwing up a lot of dust as he slid onto his side. The express coaches bounced and knocked into each other and the last car did a barrel roll. Everyone inside them were screaming their heads off while others were knocked out. Eclipse had jumped away just in time and from the top of the hill, Shadow stood in horror.
Present time...
"NNNNNNNNNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" Shadow screamed.
As the express came to a hault, Shadow raced down to see the damage. Several people were thrown from the windows and tragically...some didn't make it. Shadow ran for the last car to see the unconscious bodies of Cream, Vanilla, Honey and Cheese. Gemerl was helping up Rouge who was coughing.
"Rouge what happened?" Shadow asked.
"That alien...Eclipse...he-"
Rouge coughed some more and Shadow went to try and wake up the others. Thankfully they came to with only a few bruises and they were bleeding a bit.
"Ugh...what happened?" Honey asked.
"Mama, you okay?" Cream asked.
"I'm fine dear, just a little scratched up." Vanilla nodded.
"CHAO!" Cheese said.
Suddenly Thomas arrived with Annie and Clarabel to see the horrible crash. The Chaotix came rushing out of Annie to assist.
"Gordon you alright?' Thomas asked.
"For now I guess...but I don't think they are." Gordon looked back.
At the same time Sonic and Tails arrived and were also shocked at the scene. Sonic nearly threw up seeing some of the dead bodies on the ground and blood everywhere. He had to lean against his car to keep himself up. Charmy almost threw up on Vector who quickly pushed him away.
"Oh my god, how could this happen?" Tails asked.
"It's that damn alien..." Shadow growled.
Rouge noticed the chaos emeralds were gone and gasped.
"HE TOOK THE EMERALDS!"
"DAMN IT!" Shadow kicked a rock far in the distance.
Sonic and Tails pulled out theirs.
"Well we have these, but where could he go with the others?" Sonic wondered.
Immediately the enemy alarm towers goes off alerting them all, Shadow received a call from the GUN commander.
"Agent Shadow, we just received a signal indicating there's a threat on your island."
"We know now." Shadow groaned.
"He must still be on the island." Tails figured.
The commander had more to say.
"No...now it appears something has invading the Space Colony ARK, but we shut that down years ago."
"Oh no! He's gonna try to reactivate the Eclipse Cannon and blow up the island, or worse...the world." Tails gasped.
"He doesn't have enough chaos emeralds to blow up the world...but he can get rid of this island." Rouge informed them.
Thomas whistled getting their attention.
"We can let that happen, I want in!" Thomas said sternly.
"We do too!" Annie and Clarabel said.
"You sure Thomas?" Sonic smirked.
"Oh yeah."
"Excellent, glad to have ya help." Sonic have a thumbs up.
Gemerl spoke up.
"I'll get Cream, Cheese and Vanilla some medical help and Chaotix will get the ambulance and Rocky. You guys go on ahead." Gemerl said.
"We got ya covered!" Vector nodded.
Everyone nodded and Thomas, Annie and Clarabel turned into their mobian forms. Shadow held out his emerald as he, Sonic, Tails, Rouge, Thomas, Annie and Clarabel stayed close. Sonic had decided to bring his car for Thomas to use.
"CHAOS CONTROL!"
To be continued...