Lost Course in the Woods
The Sky Patrol was flying in the sky after Sonic and his siblings returned to Starlight City. As they headed over the sea, Marine was talking to Silver.
"And that is how my team and I defeated an eldritch abomination and saved Mobius." Silver replied.
"I'll be stuffed." Marine commented. "I knew that my Papi fought alongside you, but he never told me that he actually fought against an eldritch abomination. How come he never told me about that?"
"I wouldn't blame him for that." Silver mentioned. "I haven't even told Sonic about that battle. That monster was… I don't know how to describe him. He was unspeakably horrible in appearance."
"Anyway, that is some story." Marine replied. "It's a good thing, you're comin' alon'."
"Yes, but I also remember that my son will be in charge of this expedition." Silver continued. "I will like to see him manage this with my own eyes."
"What's gonna happen to you once Sonic becomes the king of South Island?" She asked.
"Most likely, I'll be placed in an advisor role. Which I don't mind."
Then, Tails came over the intercom.
"Guys, we have a bit of a situation." He stated. "Because of how low the oil is, continued flight will result in the Sky Patrol to overheat. I'm going to have to land the airship at the first opportunity."
The ship entered into a clearing in the middle of a thick forest. As the entire group left the shuttle, Tails checked the engine.
"Ugh, the engine needs cooled down." Tails replied as he reached over to the compartment for the fluids. He checked for spare fluid. "The cans are empty." He sighed. "We are going to need to get some more fluids, this thing can't fly until we do."
"So, this means we have to go through is forest?" Amy asked.
"We got no choice." Tails replied. "We can get some flashlights and hopefully get through.
It was rather dark out, the members of Team Sonic were on edge as they explored the black forest region. There was a little bit of fog covering the forest floor.
"I don't like the looks of this." Tails stated.
"I will have to admit this is getting a bit creepy." Sonic replied.
"We should stick together." Silver replied. "I'm sensing a dark presence nearby."
"I can reaffirm that." Amy added; they continued down the path near each other. Then, Chip pointed out something in the fog.
"What's that over there?" Chip asked. They looked up at the figure. It appeared to be a mobian woman with long hair, kneeling down and crying.
"Are you all right?" Marine asked the woman, but there was no response from the woman. She became a little more concerned. "I think we need to help her."
"Marine…" Tails said as she decided to head over to the woman. Then, the raccoon girl got close to her.
"Are you okay?" Marine asked again. Silver sensed something and summoned his mind blades. The mobian woman jerked its head up towards Marine and it shrieked. The woman's eye sockets were completely blank and the mouth had sharp fangs. Patches of flesh was rotted.
The surprised raccoon jumped away terrified as it continued to scream. Silver had thrown one of the mind blades and it landed right in the monsters head. And the body collapsed to the ground.
"What the bloody hell was that?" Marine asked.
"That was a shrieker." Silver stated. "This one was a corporeal one. If one is here, then there must be other undead nearby. It could have alerted them of our presence." They had heard the scuffling of feet and moaning all around them.
"ZOMBIES! I HEAR ZOMBIES!" Chip stated, hiding behind Sonic's head.
"An ambush." Silver stated. "Prepare for battle."
Sonic dashed out of the way of the zombies and buzz sawing through the rotting corpses. Tails was zapping blaster fire towards the undead.
"Ugh, where am I to hit these things?" Tails shouted. Silver pierced the center of a zombie with one of his blades.
"Strike its brain." Silver stated as he plunged his other blade in the corpse's face. "It's the zombie's weakspot." He pulled the sabers out of the corpse. "Or decapitate it."
"You know a lot about these things." Marine commented.
"I defeated as much of these things as my son had smashed robots." Silver boasted. "I know a thing or two about these things."
"Undead, behind ya." Marine stated, as a zombie snuck up on Silver. Amy Rose smashed it with her hammer.
"Zombie? What zombie?" Amy replied.
During the fight, Silver had ended up dropping the seven chaos emeralds; one lit, the others dark, on the ground but he didn't notice them. While they were fighting, the giant form of Mammoth Mogul appeared before them.
"Are you enjoying my little ambush?" he taunted them. Then, Silver turned to face him.
"It's Mogul." Silver stated, angrily towards the mastodon.
"You finally remember me." Mogul answered. "How sweet. But I have no time for compliments, you have something that belongs to me and I want it back."
"We don't have anything that you would want." The albino growled. "Even if we did, we wouldn't give it to you." Mogul raised some zombies to block the albino's path to him. Then, Chip flew up to the undead lich.
"Put 'em up, Mogul." Chip stated, doing some punches and kicks towards him. "Fight like a man, or a mammoth, or whatever you are." Mogul just moved his staff to his left hand. "Time for you to face my Chippy Capoeira." The mastodon just flicked the little doll away. "AHH!" He slammed into a tree, then he slid to the ground. "Lulu, where are you, kupo?" Then, he fell unconscious.
The zombies continued to keep the heroes busy as Mogul raised his staff and cast necromantic magic onto the chaos emeralds. He raised all seven into the air.
"Now, where are you?" He said. Then, Amy noticed Mogul with the emeralds.
"Put those emeralds down." She shouted, rushing towards him. He arranged the emeralds in a row and used them as a club to knock her away. Amy was thrown into the air and Sonic leapt up into the air and caught her, bringing her down safely.
"That was close." He stated. Then, the mastodon raised up some skeletons to block the two hedgehogs' path. He turned the emeralds until he found the darkened cyan chaos emerald.
"There you are." Mogul said. "My precious." He saw Tails preparing a shot towards Mogul with his blaster. The mammoth magically charged the other six emeralds and lunged the emeralds towards him, faster than Tails can prepare. Marine was able to push Tails out of the way, but got hit by the emeralds.
"MARINE!" Tails said. "Are you okay?"
"I should be fine, Tails." She stated with emerald shaped bruises on her body, but no one was even aware of the magical seal that was put on her body that later vanished. The two saw a shield form around Mogul. Then, the mastodon casted evil magic onto the emerald he held. The two saw what appeared to be a glass vial filled with a sickly, glowing purple substance. It had diabolical decorations made of oxidized bronze.
"Reunited at last." Mogul answered, dropping the last chaos emerald.
"What is that thing?" Tails asked. Then, in a deadlock, Silver turned to the young fox.
"It's the phylactery." Silver replied. "If we destroy it, we destroy Mogul for good."
"But I'm not going to let you have that chance," The mastodon answered. "For I will stop you at all cost."
"From destroying that glass bottle of yours?" Sonic stated. "That's obvious that you would say that but we'll wreck you up." The blue blur tried a spindash against the Mammoth, but the shield was too strong to penetrate. The mammoth chuckled.
"Fool, why do you continue to resist? The end of you has come." Mogul explained. "Dark Gaia has now come. My time to rise is now, and I have waited centuries upon centuries for this moment. You will fail in restoring the chaos emeralds before Dark Gaia escapes from the center of Mobius. I'll make sure of that." Mogul laughed as he fled.
The blue blur tried to pursue him but a wall of bone blocked his path. The more bone, he smashed through the more bones that formed to block his path. By the time Sonic had finally broken through, Mogul was already gone.
"Damn it." Sonic shouted. "He got away." By that time, the rest of the undead were taken down. He turned around to head back to the others. "I'm sorry, Dad. I couldn't stop him."
"It was a first time that he had attacked us like that." Silver said, trying to comfort him. "For now, we need to get stronger for the conflicts ahead of us to restore the chaos emeralds." At that moment, Chip came to.
"Huh, did we win?" He asked.
"Yes, we won." Silver answered.
"But first, we need to find a place to rest." Tails said. "Marine is hurt."
"Can she walk?" Amy asked.
"I can." Marine answered. "But I ache a lot."
"Is there any place around here we can rest at?" Tails asked.
"Halo? Is anyvone out here?" Then, a human in pink bunny pajamas carrying a lantern showed up. And the mobians and Chip turned to face him.
"Dr. Von Schlemmer, what are you doing here?" Tails asked. "In your PJs?"
"Vell, I hearing some loud racket outside of my vacation house. So, I decided to grab a lantern and investigate." The doctor asked. "What are you doing here?"
"We just recently fought off lots of undead creatures." Sonic stated.
"Oh, well. I have plenty of room in my cabin. You can rest there for the night." Von Schlemmer said.
"Thanks, we can use some rest." Amy answered as they headed back to the doctor's cabin.
"As for me, I'll need to go to the three-day Science Convention in Apatos tomorrow." He stated.
"Apatos? That's where one of the chaos temples are." Chip stated. The doctor looked at him.
"Oh? What is this curious creature?" Von Schlemmer asked. "And how is he able to talk so well? Is it a magical creature?"
"Um, I have to ask doc." Sonic said. "But can you at least get out of the pink bunny suit?"
"I can't. I have nothing underneath it." Von Schlemmer replied.
"Oh boy." Sonic thought to himself.
That night as Von Schlemmer and the other mobians went to bed, Marine remained up with Silver.
"So, where are these chaos emerald recharge points?" Marine asked.
"Well, from what I have heard from Chip, there are seven of them." Silver stated. "I heard from the little guy of their locations."
"Bonza, where do we start?" Marine asked.
"One was at Amunrapi's Tomb and another was at the Eusbeus Shrine. Both of those were already taken care of." Silver explained. "There is one in Apatos, like the little guy stated. There is another somewhere near Shamar although its location is unknown. There is one in Chun-nin. There is even on Planet Freedom."
"Planet Freedom?" Marine asked in shock. "Does that mean we will have to travel into space?"
"Long ago, there was an asteroid that threatened to cause massive damage to Mobius. Thus the United Federation tried to use explosives to deal with the problem." Silver explained. "However, the massive amount of powerful explosives caused the giant rock to orbit Mobius instead of ramming into it. This became Planet Freedom. It later began inhabitable because it had the stuff needed for colonization."
"Do we have to go into deep space?" Marine asked.
"No, but we have to get to the Space Colony Arc before going to Planet Freedom." Silver stated. "Since the Black Arms came by, Planet Freedom has become a hot spot for alien convoys and merchants passing through the area. In addition, some of the wisps that came with the Black Arms came decided to stay on Planet Freedom from what I heard."
"That's good to hear." Marine replied. "Well, its London to a brick I need some sleep."
"Alright, good night." Silver stated as he watched Marine go upstairs.
"Good night." The raccoon answered. Then, the albino returned to studying the tomes that were in the cabin's bookshelf.
